


The Normal Life

by Bre



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, How I Met Your Mother, Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Drama, Gen, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 06:35:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 82,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bre/pseuds/Bre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BtVS/SPN/HIMYM Crossover. The Hellmouth in Sunnydale has been closed for years and Buffy is living the happy nothing-Slayer-related normal life she always wanted in NYC until an attack one night reminds her of everything she thought she was okay leaving behind...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One - May 2018

The Normal Life

by Bre

Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters or parts of this storyline. They belong to the brains of The Whedon, The Kripke and The Bays/Thomas. I also do not own the lyrics used.  
Rating: R/FR18 (violence, language, dark themes and sexual references)  
Author's Notes: Nobody bothers to read AN notes anymore so I’m listing them for easy reference:

-Written for July 2013 Camp NaNoWriMo. Credit for the original idea goes to TheDana (see her handwritten notes to me here and here). I just executed and embellished. A lot.  
-No HIMYM knowledge required! I haven't watched HIMYM in a long while so things are definitely out of order. It’s an AU, expect nothing less.  
-I’ve only been to NYC a few times, and I’ve never lived there. I tried.  
-Fun story, I work in a medical malpractice law office… and I still suck at medical jargon. Again, I tried.  
-Playing by BtVS rules with the vampires and combining mythology on other aspects from both shows.  
-Song lyrics are “The Dogs of War” by Pink Floyd, “Turn to Stone” by Joe Walsh and “Something Real” by Renee Stahl.  
-This is written according to HIMYM tactics. Non-italics represent Buffy in first person, telling the story. Italics represent past scenes in third person.

Couples: Buffy/Dean, Buffy/Ted  
Timeline: BtVS: Multiple years post S7; SPN: Multiple years post S8 (for the sake of this story, the gates of Hell were closed and Sam did not die because of it); HIMYM: Undefined. I am going against the timeline grain according to the show - run with it!

Summary: BtVS/SPN/HIMYM Crossover. The Hellmouth in Sunnydale has been closed for years and Buffy is living the happy nothing-Slayer-related normal life she always wanted in NYC until an attack one night reminds her of everything she thought she was okay leaving behind...

*

**Chapter One - May 2018**

  
_you can knock at any door_   
_but wherever you go, you know they’ve been there before_   
_well winners can lose and things can get strained_   
_but whatever you change, you know the dogs remain_   


I'm gonna tell you a story.

Tonight is my one year anniversary.

It has been exactly one year since everything got completely sucked into the crap fan for what is officially quantified as the bajillionth time - that’s right, the bajillionth time. This girl right here? You’re looking at the unofficial queen of Life Suckage. I guess I'm feeling a little nostalgic in that weird way where it was one of the crappiest days of my life, but also not at the same time…

I'm also waiting for someone and you look comfortable and talking to the trees just isn't the same, so story time it is.

Hey, don’t roll your eyes. This is a story about all the cool things you see in the movies: blood, gore, scary goons, explosions, car chases... alright, those last two not so much, but you might get some good Slayer info out of this, which you know, you won’t really be able to apply in the future because of the whole soon-to-be-dust factor, but hey. Yay knowledge.

So this is a story about being… cookie dough. Yeah, cookie dough. And then baking yourself. And then not liking being baked and letting yourself melt back to cookie dough… if cookies could actually do that…

Okay, that makes no sense at all, that’s an awful analogy. Sorry, cue the nonsensical reference to something else that is kind of related, but also has nothing to do with it at the same time and wow, I am rambly tonight.

Maybe it's better saying I am an oatmeal raisin cookie and I wanted to try being a chocolate chip cookie. Switch out the ol' raisins for some ol' chocolate chips… because everyone likes chocolate, right? Even vampires?

Come on, don’t lie.

And change is good! Most of the time. Although the kind of unfortunate part about trying to be someone else is you're born one way and most of the time that's just the way you want to be, even if you don't know it, even if you spend years trying to change it and ignore it and pretend like raisins are on the extinction list in your life…

This will all make sense, I swear. I suck at the whole story-preface-to-hook-you-in thing.

So once upon a time, there was a girl. She had a life. She went to school, she had friends and family and people she loved, and really, life was pretty good considering. But there was something about her that was a little bit strange.

I know what you're thinking: that's every single person on the planet, be a little more self-involved.

Well, smart guy, not every person on the planet is born with the destiny to be The Slayer. The one (or two or three in my case, but that's another long story) girl in her generation who runs around cemeteries, poking bad guys with pointy sticks and generally being as limber as a pretzel…

And that just switched gears into the land of the inappropriate, ignore that last part.

Anyway, this made her less than normal. More abnormal. Freakishly abnormal. And abnormal is just weird. It's that puzzle piece that has an extra part that doesn't fit anywhere, even though it came with all the other puzzle pieces.

And she really hated it.

She didn't really know she hated it though; it was a total sneaky hate spiral that suddenly blew up in her face one day. It was a destiny-hating kind of beast that lurked in the shadows, making you think you were fine with what life had handed you and that you were fine playing the part and that you were fine with the Canada-sized platter on which life kept piling the bad stuff.

But she did what she had to do. She took the reins of destiny and rode that puppy to saving the world a few times, dying a few times, watching her friends die or get hacked to pieces… Same old, same old.

She did what she had to do, all the while secretly despising it so much that she knew one day something would snap; when she would be ready to let it all go and just do something for herself, and her alone. Which is ironic considering being a Slayer is all about being alone.

But in the grand scheme of things, it's really you and all of humanity because evil isn't that picky, so the alone part I’m talking about doesn’t apply to the Chosen One bit.

All of this led to her feeling a lot of guilt because she felt like she was supposed to be grateful that she had supernatural powers and the ability to kick anybody in the face… but it only made her hate it even more. The expectation alone was about the weight of giant ape holding dumbbells and sitting on your chest and it only led to her feeling this epically messed up superiority over everyone around her… which led to feeling like an even bigger jerk about her life and her role in it and even more sneaky hate spiral.

She loved her friends and family and she loved that they were able to maintain the journey by her side… but there were only so many people she could love and lose, so many times the world could dip into the peril bin and come out on fire and she was the only one with the fire repellant before you started losing your sense of duty. Before you were done watching your entire town disappear into a giant sinkhole because of a deranged spirit-bad-guy-wanna-be and… you just lost that special thing called "caring." When you decide that being a pillar of strength for everyone around you, carrying the burden, walking around with all the answers and the solutions, was slowly eating at your insides until there was nothing left but going through the motions.

Air in, air out. Punch in face, kick in shin. Go to sleep, wake up. Eat some food, drink some drink…

And guess what?

That day finally came.

The day when I realized my sister was attending school in England, thousands of miles away from me. The day when I realized my best friend had advanced to levels of witchcraft I could never even hope to understand or relate to. The day when I realized my other best friend had fallen in love with my sister and they were somehow secretly dating right under my nose. The day when the man I viewed as my mentor and father had about a couple hundred more children to look after. The day when I saw my sister Slayer stepping up and becoming better than I ever could in the role of anything leadership-like. The day when I realized that the world was overrun with Slayers and that I….

I just wasn't needed anymore. That destiny had let me go. That I was standing and holding up nothing but air… and that it was up to me to actually do something about it.

Wow, getting a little philosophical and little bit long-winded, my bad. But it really was like an epiphany slapped me in the face.

So I left Cleveland, left the Slayer house there in the hands of my capable second-in-command sister Slayer - I even gave her the scythe, this super badass ax/stake combo created specifically for Slayers that even you would be impressed to be on the other end of - and I just drove.

Just… drove. Borrowed some money from Giles, left and went… somewhere. Actually, I kind of went west a little before getting looped back around and somehow I eventually ended up in New York where I found myself in a little community college studying art history… and then a hop skip second later, I found myself a job as an assistant to a curator at one of the art galleries that frequented Manhattan like Starbucks did, you know, everywhere.

It was crazy. And fast. And… exactly what I wanted.

Things were great. Things were busy. I had everything I had always wanted, all the things I hadn't allowed myself to really dwell on; what that little voice in the back of my head had always whispered to me about the way things could be when I would cry myself to sleep during the Angel years or when I pretended to love people because I thought I should or when I would fight the desire to run away after my mom died or when I let a certain not-to-be-named vampire do things to me that I would never have imagined letting happen or when I turned around and watched that same guy, someone who turned into one of the most important people in my life, turn to ash right before my eyes or when I felt that heavy resigned feeling whenever the weight of the world landed on my shoulders because it was getting sucked into another freaking hell dimension again.

I had a job. I had an apartment. I went to bed at ten every night and woke up at five. I bought too many shoes and wore glamorous clothes that I would never have been able to afford to wear on my old 'kill, blood, dust' schedule. I was even entertaining the idea of getting a dog a.k.a. an actual living creature. There had been this whole goldfish incident trauma thing that kinda scarred me, but had apparently long since faded away by then.

Of course, that probably wouldn't happen since I did still kill my plants. I mean, they were in the sunlight and got watered, I never really understood the how of them dying but they still managed to wilt, literally right before my eyes… I even tried talking to them, soothing them… which only made them die quicker.

This was always kind of a Buffy issue. With everything. Probably why I was so good at the killing instead of the growing stuff… And also probably a good reason to be nice and keep listening, huh? A little less hissing a little more listening equals you get to live longer, buddy. Not like you’re going anywhere.

If we have time, I can tell you the story of how I had to dig myself out of my grave, so I totally get how uneasy that is. Your foot is probably stuck on something.

Anyway, despite the killing of the plant life, things were going pretty smoothly. And to top off the cherry pie life I had created so far away from where my old life started, I fell in love. Like, I fell in love. Hard. With someone normal, someone silly, someone who could look at me and not see my past, not see what I had been, what I had become before Sunnydale went kaput.

Someone who accepted me for what I was at that point in my life and didn't pry into my past. He didn't even care about my past. He accepted the vague references and summaries that totally dodged the subject. He knew about the remaining family I had and that they lived out of the country mostly. That my hometown was a pit of dust because of a freak accident. He accepted that I had come from somewhere really dark and unhealthy and unwelcome compared to the "now" - and I didn't even have to go into the whole Slayer gig thing; the whole "supernatural things are real, yeah… Crazy, huh?" thing because it wasn't even a thing to go into.

He just… he accepted me. Without a second thought.

He was one of those guys who was probably too overly excited about the future and what it held for him and whoever was lucky enough to join in that crazy ride of love at his side. He was literally the most optimistic person I had ever met, and this is coming from someone who knows the early years of Willow Rosenberg. He was someone who accepted that we all came from somewhere, good and bad, dark and light, and only looked to the future, hopefully with that one special person.

And for a while, that person was me. And I really liked it. Not only was he a great guy - a mixture of my best friend's goofiness and one of my ex's calm doofiness with the large side of monogamy - but he also had this group of friends that made me feel right at home. A separate life from my old one that felt… good. Right. Comfortable. One that I was ready to spend the rest of my life fitting right into like nothing else had ever happened… like I hadn't died twice or like my best friend hadn't tried to end the world or that two of my boyfriends were super hot vampire guys with souls…

I was just little ol' normal me who worked in an art gallery and developed a really bad dependence on coffee.

And it was perfect. I was like this alternate version of Buffy. Being a Slayer didn't matter or exist, having to constantly save the world wasn't even on my radar… there were other people for that, other people to take over the putting-out-of-the-world-fire thing.

I was happy.

I was… free.

But wouldn't you know it, the past always finds a way to leak right back into your life, no matter how hard you tried to bury it.

But the surprise wasn't how it leaked in or how much it bulldozed me… but how I reacted to it.

It’s a little bit like your past doesn't just disappear with a little "normal life" varnish…


	2. Chapter Two - May 2014

**Chapter Two - May 2014 (eleven years post Sunnydale turning into a giant hole)**

 

_hey now, the well run dry_   
_pages of the book on fire_   
_read the writing… on the wall…_

_"Buffy, come on!"_

_"No, I have to go!"_

_"This magnanimous glass of beer in my hand completely disagrees."_

_Buffy Summers rolled her eyes. "I've been here for four hours, Barney. Four. Hours. And look, I'm leaving a happy Ted in my place."_

_"Bah! Ted's boring. I can't do anything with Ted anymore. He's all…" Barney Stinson made a face at their table mate who watched him with a patiently amused smile on his face. "Well, you've broken him. What kind of best friend ditches the honorable position of wing man? I mean really."_

_"Uh, you mean after the last time when you said I had a life-threatening and completely non-transferrable disease and I was all alone in the world but for my childhood best friend who also happens to be my doctor?" Ted Mosby cut in. Buffy raised her eyebrows, turning to face Barney who rolled his eyes. "And proceeded to try to hook me up with one of those girls after saying we both needed 'shoulders' to lean on because the whole disease thing was really taking a toll?"_

_"Oh really?" Buffy said. "And why am I just now hearing about this? And by the way, smooth - non-transferrable disease? Really?"_

_"Please, it didn’t work anyway. And it was your fault, Summers, because you weren't there as my darling sister who only cares about the welfare of her brother… and the people who occupy his bed. Or his couch.” Barney’s smile grew. “Or a bathroom sink or the back of a taxi cab.”_

_Buffy snorted, remembering the one and only time she had played his sister in the gross play he called life and how it had ended. Oh yeah, that had been fun. Enter sarcasm. "And that's my cue to leave."_

_"God, you two are so dull. With your coupley-face and you stupid coupley-happiness and your… stupid dullness."_

_"Uh-huh," Buffy said, turning to face Ted. She cocked her head. "So he tried to hook you up with a girl again, huh?"_

_"And it ended with me telling her about my beautiful and super committed live-in girlfriend," Ted finished, smiling. "Dry cleaning?"_

_"Dry cleaning," Buffy said with a nod. "Gotta get my power suit."_

_"At least she suits up," Barney said in a low voice, glancing around the bar, perusing the banquet. They ignored him._

_"We'll be here later; Marshall and Lily are coming in a bit."_

_Buffy smiled. It seemed everyone's life schedules had been busier than they normally were and they hadn’t had the group together for a while. She hadn't seen Lily or Marshall in actual conversation-having ways. She had seen them in a few other senses. She winced as her thoughts led her to what her roomies were most likely doing upstairs before shuddering at the memories of the many times she had walked in on them as they christened the couch… and then Ted's desk… the windowsill… the tub… the floor… and then the kitchen again._

_"Right. I'll be back here then."_

_"Ah!" Barney suddenly said, raising his arm as Robin Scherbatsky stopped a few feet away, looking weary as she shook out her drenched umbrella. Buffy stood up after a quick peck from Ted. "Robin is here to save the day. Wing Woman checking in!"_

_"They're all yours," Buffy said with a smile before heading to the exit._

_"Oh goody," Robin replied, sliding in next to Ted._

_It was raining cats and dogs and rats and possums when Buffy stepped out of MacLaren's. The drops were the size of the cars parked outside her building as she held a newspaper above her head and started sprinting. It always took weather like this to remind her why she didn’t need to feel guilty about getting newspapers just to read the horoscopes. Hello, perfect faux umbrellas, especially since she hadn’t bothered to get a new one since she left her last one on the subway._

_Despite the weather, she wasn't the only one out - she dodged around the people and the obstacles that littered every Manhattan street like the sidewalk was the nuisance._

_Her emergency dry cleaning run was of the necessary, despite the weather. She needed that damn suit because it was her lucky suit and her boss had made it extra clear that the meeting tomorrow was "imperative" to land this "ultra important" client. Thus the lucky suit was being called into action._

_Buffy was finally starting to get what her mom had been talking about when it came to the artists she hosted and the money she brought them and the weird and somehow creepy joy of facilitating someone else's joy when their artwork sold. It never failed to amaze her how easy it was to fill those Joyce Summers shoes, to pretend like this had been her life goal all along…_

_Buffy shoved that thought away as she jogged down the street. She wasn’t filling those shoes. They were her shoes, although very much so molded a la Joyce Summers... And they were comfy. And in her head, they were the shiny leather boots she had seen the other day that she had already started mentally saving up for._

_The dry cleaner was only a couple of blocks away and she was getting soaked to the bone as cars whipped through the streets, splashing water out of the potholes like geysers. She sighed in exasperation at herself as two empty taxis drove by._

_Stopping to catch her breath and to shake out her newspaper, Buffy ducked into an alley, standing beneath an overhang._

_"Rain, rain, go away," she mumbled, peeking out to glance at the sky. It looked like an endless black hole of miserable water coming at her. Thank you, spring weather, for visiting at the most inopportune times. Now turn off that overly considerate rain knob and stop…_

_Buffy took a deep breath, shoving her purse higher on her shoulder, ready to finish her trek when she felt a tight, uncomfortable cramping in the pit of her stomach, but it registered too late._

_Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion as her instincts started screaming one thing, her mind doing another and her heart responding to both. She felt a catch in her breath as she stepped out into the rain; alarms started screaming at the back of her mind… the newspaper was already leveled above her head to help cascade the New York weather from doing too much damage when they hit._

_She was too slow - she didn't react when a pair of hands grabbed her upper arm and yanked her back with so much force, she felt like the tendons in her shoulder were ripping apart._

_God, how many years had it been since she had had to brace for an attack like this? How long had it been since her body had reacted on instinct, knowing that she could easily go with the motion while spinning around to shove her fist into whoever dared to attack her?_

_Too long._

_It had been too long and Buffy's mind blanked as the searing pain ripped through her upper body. The hands tugged her back, her feet losing grip on the ground and her world suddenly tilted._

_She had been living in Manhattan for three years now - longer than that in New York when her shabby Brooklyn apartment was included on the list - and she had never been attacked. She had never worried about being attacked because she was the Slayer. Or she had been. She couldn't even remember the last time she had let herself have a decent training session… hell, the last time she had even gone for a run._

_Because after a while, she thought she hadn’t needed to._

_Buffy cried out in pain as gravity slammed her into the wet concrete. The vampire didn't pause as he dragged her further into the inky darkness of the alley. Her back and shoulders roared in protest as he yanked her along, her weight catching on the gutted holes of the alley floor, her nose filling with the rank piss-covered walls and moldy garbage. Every distress signal in her head shot to life, her body flooding with adrenaline as the vamp dragged her into the shadows, moving quickly. She felt her jeans grating on the ground, her back getting scraped until it felt like it was on fire._

_But the worse pain was in her stomach - it was cramping like someone was twisting a whisk inside her abdomen._

_There were more of them. A lot more._

_It was the wrong kind of adrenaline rocking through her body as she opened her mouth to scream. It was cut off when one of the vampires kicked her in the face, his shoe landing solidly in the center of her nose. White hot pain exploded in her head, blood started gushing from her nose; Buffy choked as it started to run down the back of her throat. She felt a clawed hand curl into her wet hair and tug her head back as the others crowded around her, hands grabbing her flailing limbs, holding her down._

_Panic burst inside her body like a bomb, obliterating any pain as it instantly started screeching the instinct to run through her system. Her mind scrambled to come to terms with what was happening as they positioned themselves around her. The panic was like a black noxious cloud covering her body, dulling everything else but the need to scream until her vocal cords ripped. She couldn't think, couldn’t concentrate; she couldn’t move but to struggle against the hands clamped on her body._

_Her mouth was open but all she could hear was a thick white noise, the sound of her blood rushing through her body, the sound of someone’s cries…_

_She felt the gentle spatter of the raindrops ricocheting off the ground; she felt fetid breath on her skin as they chuckled, exchanging words she couldn't hear. They tugged up her sleeves and pulled her sweater down to expose her throat. Her eyes blinked against the rain as she tried to see her attackers, the hot blood oozing from her face feeling painful against her clammy skin._

_Just as breathing started getting harder, her lungs contracting painfully in time with her panic, she felt two more pairs of hands scratching at the inside of her thighs, fighting through her wet denim to expose the sensitive and plentiful veins at the juncture of her legs and an agonizing shot of fear speared through her chest._

_Like an open wound, she felt every inch of her skin being violated. The sound of denim tearing ripped through the air as one of them took a deep, needy breath at the scent of her blood… and she suddenly felt something snap inside._

_Like a crack in her mind, Buffy let go, let the panic fill her to the point of bursting as the vampires ducked down to take their fill._

_Her body did the rest._

_With a shout, a commanding rush surged through her limbs as instinct took over and she jerked her legs free with surprising strength, slamming her knees into two faces simultaneously. A howl of pain echoed through the alleyway as Buffy yanked one arm free and slammed her fist into another face, squirming her body to get out, to get off the ground and back onto an even playing field._

*

It wasn't until later that I realized what I was feeling in that moment was power. Pure, unadulterated power, something I wasn't controlling… it just took over me. It was intoxicating. It had been so long since I'd let myself go, since I had let myself do what I was born to do, since I had defended myself against such evil. It was like I had been living in this gauze-covered world and suddenly everything was clear and distinct.

It felt good.

It felt right.

Which, you know, had the potential to clash with the whole "normal life" thing, but that's really spoiling the story.

*

_Breaking the hold on her upper body, Buffy rolled to her feet. Her head throbbed from the hard kick she had received, the blood flowing in a gush from both nostrils. She mopped it up, looking down in detached wonder as the red stained her sweater, as the blood on her hand washed away in small splats from the heavy rain before looking up at the five vampires before her. The fear and panic was gone, almost like it had never been there._

_In its place was a fast-growing anger as she felt the tears in her jeans at her inner thighs and the scratches on her neck from tugging her shirt down… She felt her intestines cramping painfully at the thought of what they had almost gotten. What she had almost let them have._

_One of the vampires laughed, the rain making his ghastly face glisten, accenting the heavy shadows under his brow and cheekbones. "We've got a slippery one, fellas." The other vampires chuckled along with him as he stepped forward, the clear leader. "But wouldn't you know it, we just got back into town. Haven't had a decent meal in a few days… So you won't get far."_

_Where once upon a time, she would have had a quippy response, Buffy just stared at them, her lungs expanding rapidly. Gritting her teeth, she licked her lips, tasting the metallic tinge leaking from her nose. She chanced a quick glance around and saw they had her surrounded, cornered against a wall and a dumpster that looked like it had grown as tall as the buildings around it._

_And luck was just making her its plaything as there were no handy pieces of sharpened wood lying about._

_A spike of anxiety struck her chest, but Buffy pushed it down. The desire to get out and take a moment to breath - to let the shock wash over her and let her realize she wasn't just some ordinary woman on the streets of Manhattan - was overwhelming but she didn't have any other choice. She could only do one thing if she wanted to get out of this alley alive._

_Fight._

_"Try running," the leader taunted, his voice rasping between his fangs and the rain. Brushing wet hair from her face, Buffy clenched her fists, raising them up, not liking her odds._

_It had been years - years - since she had last sparred with a punching bag, much less a dead flesh and blood creature. The familiar power of her lineage was scorching through her body, but she also felt weak. Out of practice. Like she had shoved that part of her life so far down and out of the way that it had been left to rust in the dust..._

_"Oh yeah, that’s good.” The vampire chortled. “Struggling makes the blood spicier."_

_Buffy's eyes danced to his lackeys as they threw in a few comments. Despite the rain, she could see their drool at the prospect of a meal. The meal being her blood. A roar of rebellion and strength seared her stomach and Buffy clenched her fists tighter. She was a Slayer. A rusty Slayer, but also the longest living in Slayer history._

*

I might as well name this story "How Buffy Lived Under A Rock Named Denial and How That Rock Blew Up In Buffy's Face."

What was really interesting was how I managed to escape all those years in New York without meeting even one vampire in the dark, but that's getting off topic… and don't even get me started on the guilt factor of living there for so long and not slaying anything, we'll get to that. It was like the oatmeal raisin cookie part of myself went into hibernation and was now suddenly getting burned alive.

Or, you know when you wake up from a nap and it feels like the entire universe is wrong? Do vampires nap? I guess you wouldn't know quite yet, being new and all. But it felt like my universe had done a complete one-eighty. Total mind screw.

*

_They attacked, swarming around her and with a tremble in her limbs, Buffy met them._

*

It was bloody and it was awful. I didn't have a stake. I was throwing punches like I didn't know how to aim and I would have died about ten different times if I didn't have that special something that moves you for you… if that makes sense. You know, Slayer instinct. You’d get an idea if you were going anywhere tonight.

I almost broke three fingers, I cracked a rib and one of them nearly shattered my left knee. It was exhausting and painful and I was freaking out the entire time. It was a lot like my first night of slaying: terrifying.

*

_Buffy felt something in her spine crack when one of the vamps slammed her against the corner of the dumpster. A pained cry fell from her lips as she collapsed to the ground. Fighting to get a breath in, she pushed through the searing pain in her back to swing her leg out and knock two of them off their feet._

_She was losing. Badly. And shame and foolishness were starting to win the battle inside her chest as she realized she hadn't left her home prepared for something just like this since long before she had even moved to Manhattan._

_She was going to die._

_Clamoring to her feet, Buffy elbowed one and shoved her foot back to catch the one trying to take her out from behind. Sweeping around, she nailed him in the face with her foot, watching with a quick glimpse of satisfaction his fall to the ground. It was short lived though when a heavy fist landed on her chin, rocking her head to the side and making her lose her balance again._

_Flashes of her life flew before her eyes as she rolled to her knees, crawling achingly slow to the wall to get leverage to stand. Her body shook as she saw Ted the first time she’d met him thanks to Barney’s game of “Have You Met Ted?” and then both of them in bed sharing a joke before seeing him shove an ice cream cone in her face._

_She saw her boss, Marinna, high-fiving her after she successfully helped at her first art showing. She saw herself with all her friends at MacLaren's, sharing a laugh and a plate of hot wings before she saw Dawn's face. Her mom's… And then Willow's. Xander. Giles. Faith. Spike. Angel. Riley… hell, she even saw all the new Slayers. The ones she had left in the hands of Faith for training... Double hell, she even freaking saw Andrew._

_It was all washing down the drain, drowning in the blood, grime and dirty water falling on her as she climbed to her feet. She didn't have any weapons, nothing to dissuade the vamps from coming at her. She had already broken one wrist, two noses and knocked one of them out but it wasn't enough. She'd had enough openings for the kill but nothing to kill with._

*

Also known as I was really screwed.

*

_A fierce bark of anger lit up in Buffy's mind as the attacks continued. She felt a kidney hit just as she landed a double-fisted hit to one vamp's head. She grabbed one's leg and flipped him away while another tried to get leverage with her sweater but she was too fast. Her knee connected with a nose as one ripped some hair from her scalp._

_One grabbed her from behind and slammed her into the wall, her head ricocheting off the brick. And just like that, a hive of bees took residence inside her skull as her brain whipped through the pudding it felt like, her eyes suddenly feeling so heavy they might as well have been tied to bricks themselves. She absently felt her arms being held against the wall as the leader ducked in. Buffy kicked her leg out, catching his shin. He grunted, grabbing her limbs and using his body to nail her to the wall._

_"Get off," Buffy bit out through gritted teeth, wrenching her arms, the muscles in her shoulders burning. She slipped a wrist free, scratching at anything she could find before the leader slammed her wrist back into the wall, digging her bony wrist against the rough brick. She gasped in pain._

_"I don't think so, sweetie," he breathed, his breath dancing across her face. Buffy felt bile rising in the back of her throat at what the rank breath promised, the breath of a thousand other victims having slid down his gullet. He inhaled deeply. "The rain is making you smell… so, so delicious."_

_Buffy closed her eyes, something hot and panicked burning through her limbs. She was ready to shove her forehead into his nose, not ready to give up or fail even if it meant a five second window to run…_

_But then the weight of the leader was gone._

_Buffy inhaled sharply at the sudden loss, breathing in the dead dust, making her cough. It stuck to her skin as the one on her right suddenly burst into dust as well and she fell to the ground as her third captor turned to whoever had come to her aid._

_Wiping her eyes, Buffy saw a man wearing a soaking leather jacket move quickly and silently as two of the vamps advanced. She didn't pause to wonder who he was, what he was doing there and how he knew how to handle a stake so well… Instead, she jumped to her feet, ignoring the shrieking pain in her body as she tackled one of them from behind._

_And then it was a blur._

_She remembered yelling for a stake countless times, demanding one. She heard someone asking her what the hell she was doing before her vampire gained the upper hand on her and that same someone cursing. And then a stake appeared in her hand and suddenly she was straddling the vamp and she was shoving the sharp wood through his chest plate._

_The ease of pushing the wood through the flesh and muscle, cracking it through the bone and into his heart was delicious in her hands; her body moved on muscle memory as a rush of images bombarded her mind of doing this exact thing, hundreds and hundreds of times over. A burst of euphoria exploded in her chest when the vampire turned to dust beneath her and she landed on the hard wet concrete with a loud smack. She turned to look over her shoulder as the last two were dusted._

_The man was wiping his hands off on his jacket as he came towards her. She still sat crouched on the ground, the adrenaline from the fight roaring through her body, feeling like she was going to keel over. He was soaking wet as he reached her, holding out his hand._

_"You okay?"_

_She could barely hear him over the static in her head. Buffy stared at the offer, breathing hard. Her eyelids were heavy from the rain still cascading down like a waterfall. Her mind was firing blanks, trying to think past how much she was starting to shake, as she tried to put two and two together._

_Vampire attack. Vampire attack. Vampire attack._

_Before the mystery guy could ask again, she lifted her shaking hand and placed it in his, using his strength to help lift her back to her feet. She didn't move or say anything and he shook his head._

_"Christ," he mumbled under his breath before he tugged her into a covered doorway, the same place the vampires had held her down. She stared at the ground absently as the guy pulled something from his back pocket. "Look at me."_

_Moving like a robot, Buffy did as he said. A handsome, worn face stared back at her. He had a bruised eye from where a vampire had hit him and a cut lip. He was squinting at her, trying to see something she couldn’t as the pain finally started registering. She closed her eyes in a wince. She didn’t see the handkerchief in his hand until he pressed it against her temple and then her nose._

_“Hey, keep those eyes open,” he ordered, his face set in a hard frown. Buffy did as he said, staring at his nose, vaguely noting the way the rain water emphasized the freckles that littered the skin there before realizing why she could see them at all._

_They were standing near a streetlight._

_God, had she almost died that close to civilization? People continued to move about like nothing in the world was wrong. Like she hadn't almost died just three feet away. Like she hadn't spent who the hell knows how long fighting and nobody came… until…_

_The handkerchief swiped against her chin again and Buffy felt it mopping up her congealing blood. “Hey, you okay?”_

_“Yeah,” she managed, her voice a croak. Looking down at her sweater, she saw a large tear across her chest, smudges from the dirt-laced ground. Shifting her feet, she felt the tears in her jeans at her inner thighs again and a rush of horror flooded her body._

*

I didn’t really want to do anything but throw up everything I’d ever eaten. I was in total shock. I was having a hard time understanding how I had let any of it happen in the first place.

I knew. I had always known what went bump in the night and I had turned my back on it. Pretended like it didn’t exist, like it had never existed.

And it came back with a vengeance to rival white pants on Labor Day.

*

_“Mind explaining how you know how to kill vampires?” the stranger asked, his eyes narrowed. Buffy met his stare, her own blank and her face slack. It didn't occur to her how silly it was that some random human guy was asking her how she knew how to slay vampires…_

_She was just... there. She felt empty. Like a wisp of wind could blow right past them and she would get swept up in the breeze, disappearing forever..._

_She didn’t reply; she stepped away. Shaking her head to the tune of her thoughts, she looked around, her mind filling in the blank spots on the ground with what had just happened - right over there, she had cracked one of the vampire’s heads against a trash can and right there, she had felt every bone in her hand turn to liquid lava as another vamp had twisted her around - before she found her purse._

_Buffy didn't think as she grabbed it, ignoring a popping twinge in her elbow. She headed towards the mouth of the alley, ignoring her savior, feeling like the rain was filling the inside of her skull, clouding her brain's ability to work._

_"Hey!" he barked._

_The mystery man’s stare drilled a hole in her back and she looked over her shoulder, catching his eye where he stood, the bloody handkerchief still in his hands as he studied her. For a split second, Buffy felt like everything rumbling around inside her head was visible for him to see. He was looking at her like he knew everything going on inside and he understood, but he was also… pitying her._

_Where she should have felt something in reaction - maybe a rush of anger or some humor - she felt nothing._

_She was numb._

_An eternity passed. Their gazes stayed locked, secrets that had no business being near her anymore passing between them as the numbing in her chest started thawing, something in his gaze making everything feel too real… Suddenly the air felt too heavy to breath, the rain felt like little spikes slamming into her overly sensitive skin, the wounds she had won felt like fire dancing across her body… until a taxi roared by, shooting water from the street onto the sidewalk, startling her._

_One more glance at him as he took a step towards her and she turned away and ran._

*

I ran until I got home. I ran upstairs. It took me five minutes to get my hands calm enough to open the door, I kept dropping the damn keys. I shoved it closed behind me so hard I’m pretty sure I cracked the jamb.

I’ll never forget what stared back at me in the mirror that night. I was destroyed. Covered in blood. My nose was already swelling, my eyes getting black like a homicidal raccoon’s. A large scratch was already drying on my temple and my jaw was bruised straight to hell. I was a mess and my body felt worse.

I couldn’t comprehend how I had gone from one thing - drinking beer, laughing and running in the rain so carefree - into something so completely different; I had stepped into death without any warning.

I took a shower, I cleaned it all off; I threw away my clothes and turned off all the lights. I just sat in bed, curled up so tight in the comforter I was suffocating. I couldn’t stop shaking, no matter how hard I tried to level my breathing or still my own skin. It was on its own rollercoaster from hell and I couldn't get it back to the land of calm.

I don’t think I had ever been so terrified in my life. Which always wigs me when I think about it that way because I've been up against things so much worse, so much more worthy of the terror.

I had always been this person, this person who had never not had the luxury of knowing I could handle anything anyone threw my way... but that night? I had failed. I had almost died.

Which, for someone who has died a few times, shouldn't have freaked me out as much as it did. But I was. To the nth degree.

Just like with the power thing, it took me a long time to realize what was happening. I was totally wigged, but I was also so jazzed I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I had felt alive that night. So alive, in such a dark and primordial way - something stronger than anything I had ever felt before - that it was freaking me the heck out. It was more intense than anything I'd felt in my slaying career and I'm sure it's easy to assume the why of that - burying things under mounds of denial has a way of dulling things…

My phone almost rattled off the table from text messages and phone calls, but I ignored them. I heard everyone coming in a few hours later. I kept still when Ted checked on me. I listened to them for a while before he came back to bed. I was wide awake when he got in, curling around me with a deep sigh. I remember he squeezed my waist and I almost dug my nails through my hand from the pain in my ribs. He whispered my name, but I didn’t say anything. Eventually he fell asleep.

I didn’t.

Because every time I closed my eyes, I saw that man in the alleyway’s eyes. I didn't see the vampires, I didn't feel the way my own blood choked me, I didn't relive the fear that my life was almost over… I saw him watching me, seeing something that I hadn’t seen in a long time.

And it scared me.

*

_The sky was still dark outside the next morning as Buffy lifted Ted’s arm away from her. Twisting around, she gently set it down in her empty spot, adjusting the blankets around him. He didn’t budge, his mouth open in a snore and for a second, Buffy just stared at him, feeling a strange disconnection._

_Not strange, really. It was a familiar sensation, one she hadn’t felt in so long, it was close to being foreign again. She hadn’t felt it since Sunnydale, since the night everyone had turned her out and she had wandered around aimlessly until Spike found her._

_Part of being the Slayer was disconnecting from the harsh crap to make rational decisions, the kind of decisions that a normal person wouldn’t want to make. Something nobody but Spike had been able to understand… or the mystery guy in the alley apparently although she was beginning to wonder if she had really seen everything she thought she had._

_He had just looked like he… knew what was going on inside her head._

_The disconnect was saving her from the feeling of wiggins. Somewhere in the middle of the night, with Ted wrapped around her and her mind back in that alley, the disconnect had come and she had felt the most satisfying level of calm take her._

_Buffy made her way to the bathroom, shutting the door before she snapped on the light to check the damage. The swelling was already gone. The cut on her temple had closed and was coming close to being a little pink line. The only tell-tale sign anything major had happened was the sallow color in the corners of her eyes, where the bruises were working on fading._

_Buffy took a deep breath, feeling only a faint twinge in her side. She lifted her leg, twisting her knee and only felt a little grinding in her knee cap._

_Alright, so the Slayer healing still worked._

_Check in the column of positive things learned, she supposed._

_Bracing herself on the sink, Buffy stared at herself. She looked tired. She looked sad. She looked... hollow. She looked like she used to look in her last few years in Sunnydale. Like someone waging a serious internal battle and drowning._

*

Or someone who had just gotten the biggest punch in the face from sassy Life.

*

_But this hollowness was her fault, wasn’t it? She had let herself go, let herself believe she could live a life that didn’t involve anything that went bump in the night. Her life in New York was sunshine and roses, a world where the meaning of life involved a lot of coffee, art, beer and laughter. Not darkness, blood and stakes. Not pain and bruises in the morning after ramming your fist into dead or scaly flesh all night._

_Not the life of a Slayer. That wasn’t her anymore…_

_So what about last night? What about the five vampires that would have killed her, a faceless person in Manhattan, a faceless Slayer who had let her abilities go lax until they felt like they were non-existent?_

_Her mind was in revolt. Turning on the faucet to ice cold, she ducked down, splashing her face until it was numb._

_No. No, last night had been a freak accident. Something that, yes, theoretically she should have been prepared for, but wasn’t. Next time, that wouldn’t happen. She still had her weapons chest sitting around somewhere, she’d just start keeping a stake in her purse at all times again. Back to the “new age defense weapon” shtick._

_For the just in case._

_For the random freak accidents._

_Just for the what-if's, nothing more._

_And the man who had saved her? What about him…_

_Wasn’t he just evidence that she didn’t need to take up the mantle again?_

_The world still had protectors out there… her time of servitude had passed._

*

Do I sound like I was in denial?

Because I totally was.

I went to work sans lucky power suit that morning and we still landed the new client. I swept everything under the rug. Like it hadn’t happened. Like I hadn’t spent the entire night shivering so badly from the huge chasm of despair and self-questioning that had suddenly opened up between my lives.

But I’m just spoiling the story for you again now, so let’s move on.

I told Ted that I had tripped on my way to the dry cleaner’s and fell pretty hard and that I just went to bed. That I didn’t want to worry anyone.

That I was fine.

Dandy. Normal. Sane. Healthy... or whatever.

Guess how long that lasted? About one week.

Unfortunately for my sanity it wasn’t something as obvious as me recognizing what I really wanted and going out and doing the Slayer Lambada. No, it started out easy and ignorable: dreams. Part of the slaying gig is the dreams - the prophetic ones, the scary ones, the blah-blah-vampire-blah-blah-blood-blah-blah ones...

But like I said, ignorable, right?

It wasn’t until I saw him again that the sunshine and roses started turning into black goopy piles of something not-rose-like.

Because something had happened that night. Something I couldn’t explain. I didn’t want to explain it. Something I had spent a considerable amount of time and energy completely ignoring, and winning at the game of You No Existy.

It was just a glimpse outside of Zibetto's; a glimpse out the corner of my eye. It was night and I was heading back with Lily after a mini shopping spree when I saw him standing in a doorway across the street, doing the cool James Dean routine. I stopped, Lily bouncing ahead of me as I met his gaze.

For the first time since that night, I saw him. I was annoyed to find that he was pretty damn attractive in one of those seriously annoying and dangerous sort of ways. A way that said, “No, I don’t think so, Buck-o, not for you. I'm too cool for school and while I'm at it, I'll slay vampires like a cool guy.” Or something. I was still working on my quips.

But he was also tired. Like life had handed him a couple of shots of crap and he had swallowed them without reserve.

I remember feeling a whole bucket-load of anxiety in my chest - you know that weird feeling when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar or see something you thought wasn’t real? That feeling. But he didn’t budge. And neither did I. So we did the stare-if-you-dare dance when he offered a sarcastic smile that hinted at him finding something about me far funnier than I would have liked and I was just at the point of talking myself into just walking across the damn street when Lily’s head popped back around the corner.

“Buffy? You coming?”

“Yeah,” I had answered immediately, shoving an everything’s-fine smile on my face before turning back to the shadowy doorway. And wouldn’t you know it? James Dean was gone.

The irresistible urge to either try to find him or bash my head into a wall was pretty overwhelming, but I ignored it. I pretended like it hadn't happened. And I grabbed Lily's hand and we kept on going to MacLaren's.

After that, things really did start to get back to normal. The dreams stopped, the restlessness stopped. The disconnect went away and I was living happy as a clam in my life all over again. I felt better when the trash went out with my destroyed clothes. I even threw away the purse I had had that night and reevaluated the truth of my power suit being lucky or not.

Until he came back, six weeks later.


	3. Chapter Three - June 2014

**Chapter Three - June 2014 (seven weeks later)**

_the dogs of war don’t negotiate_   
_the dogs of war won’t capitulate_   
_they will take and you will give_   
_and you must die so they may live_

_“I cannot believe those words just left your mouth.”_

_“Believe it, my friend.”_

_“You literally leave nothing to the imagination!”_

_Barney made a face. “Uh... yeah. Duh. Look who you’re talking to.”_

_Marshall Eriksen dropped his palm on their table, making a face at Ted as he slid into the booth with two drinks. “Ted, you’re with me on this. Princess Leia was totally hotter in A New Hope than Return of the Jedi.”_

_“Whoa,” Ted said, sliding the slender glass of wine to Buffy who smiled at him. He grinned back before turning to Marshall. “Which outfits are we talking about, the braless silky white dress or the gold-jeweled Jabba bikini?”_

_“Dude,” Marshall said patiently. “There’s no question in anyone’s mind... well, except for Barney’s, obviously... that she was hotter braless."_

_“I don’t know, I was kinda partial to her in Return of the Jedi,” Lily piped in and Marshall shot her an incredulous look._

_“What? Baby, come on.”_

_“What? It was all the sparklies against Jabba’s big ol’ lizard body.” Lily grinned. “It was pretty.”_

_“Okay, well, we’re not talking about pretty, we’re talking about bras.”_

_Buffy shook her head, taking a sip of her wine, her eyes flying over the crowd in the bar. It was full for a Tuesday night. The only downside was that they wouldn’t get the free platter of old hot wings at the end of the night, but it did always making everything more interesting when it came to anything Barney-related. They had only been there for an hour and he had already gotten two numbers - one of which turned out to be a pastrami shop near Times Square - and shot down three times._

_“An important distinction, Aldrin, get it together,” Barney piped in before smiling. “Although the jewels were pretty.”_

_“Why is it always about the bra?” Robin mused. “You know they are designed as support systems, not male ogling tools.”_

_“A fine point,” Barney responded, lifting a finger for emphasis, his voice on the verge of some epiphany that probably had no basis in logic._

_Buffy’s eyes danced over to the bar near the front door as someone else joined the fray from the chilly spring weather outside when she spotted a familiar face._

_Her heart stopped cold in its tracks, the noises of the bar and the conversation around her fading into white noise as she felt the blood leak from her face. She watched Carl nodding his head in time with what he was saying before they slapped hands together and he left a few bills in his place. She watched him as he glanced to his left, like he was waiting for someone… Then those eyes were drilling right into hers like they had that night… that night that was supposed to be buried and dead in the Did Not Exist graveyard in her head._

_The look lasted a split second before he turned away. Buffy felt the rush of cold air as someone else left the bar. She watched him set down his empty glass, nodding to Carl again like they knew each other or some crazy crap before leaving the bar without a backward glance._

_The blood that had been leeched from her face came back in a hot rush and her cheeks burned as she closed her eyes, bowing her head. A thousand knives were stabbing at her chest as she felt the pull in her body to get up and follow him. Follow him where exactly? And say what?_

_'Hey, what's up, why you here, are you following me and how the hell do you know about vampires? Not that I care or anything but it seems kind of important since you killed a bunch and saved my life or whatever and now you’re randomly popping up like some mysterious cool guy who…'_

_“I’ll be right back,” Buffy mumbled, shoving her purse to the ground and getting up. She didn’t hear if anyone responded or acknowledged her as she headed blindly to the exit, her eyes glued to the muddy glass at the front of the bar, seeing nothing. Buffy pushed through the door, her heels slapping against the stairs as she raced up to the street and looked around._

_For a split second, she felt those knives in her chest turn lethal-er when she realized he was gone until she saw a shadow in the alley across the street._

_Buffy didn’t think twice as she followed, stepping into the light traffic, ignoring the honking horn of a car speeding by. She didn't see the couple on the other side, her shoulder slamming into theirs and curse words trailing behind her as she stepped into the alley._

_A vice grip of uncertainty closed around her chest and she paused, her breathing picking up. It was dark and a splash of images tackled her mind from the night when she had been attacked. Her shoulder ached where the one had yanked her back and she felt the deep burn of dread as she remembered them scratching at her thighs, pulling her shirt down, exposing her._

*

The notion of a Slayer being afraid of the dark was silly, especially one who used to stroll right in and say, “Hey, what’s with the shadow of doom look going on here, haven’t you heard a few accent lamps can change the entire mood of a room?”

That didn’t make the terror at the thought of facing that darkness again after so many years any less real…

*

_Buffy’s arms came up to protect herself against the shadows in her mind when the sound of flesh hitting flesh pulled her back to the present and she saw them just as a dark hulk came stumbling towards her._

_Her instinctual reaction was much quicker this time. She sidestepped the human being falling back, letting him fall to the ground with a loud exhale of pain and she stepped up as the vampire came roaring through the darkness, his lips pulled back to show off his shiny canines. She grabbed the lapels of his shirt, using his momentum and turning to throw him against the brick wall._

_A rush of exhilaration flooded her system as the vamp flew through the air, an easy six feet, and slammed head first into the building. Everything was moving in the familiar slow motion of an adrenaline rush as the sickening crunch of the vampire’s cranium creaking under the assault registered before his body hit the ground like wet meat._

_Buffy didn't feel her lungs burning from breathing too fast or the shaking in her arms from the adrenaline; instead she felt the pull of intuition telling her to move and she was already turning as the mystery man behind her reached to grab her. He found her forearm, yanking her. Buffy reeled with the move, pulling her arm back to punch him in the face but he jerked back just in time._

_The next moment was a blur as Buffy moved in to attack him again._

_She didn't know what it was or why she really wanted to hit him and she didn't care. Her body sang with the art of the kill again as she moved, knowing only that she felt something threatening in this alleyway. She didn't care that it wasn't from the man she was currently trying to take down and that it was the vampire gaining consciousness behind her._

_The mystery man represented something - something she had tried for a long time to let go of. The faux threat he had posed in her mind ever since the night she had almost died - since the night everything that had been perfect had blown up in tiny life smithereens - burst to the top of her list of priorities and all she cared about was making him hurt._

*

Another one of those times where, now that I'm thinking about it, I was more mad that he had brought the supernatural world back to my doorstep. That my world had somehow been tainted after that night, even though it was the vampires and not him. That he had brought something dark back into my world of bright and shiny things…

Really, who the hell did he think he was?

He was every shade of grey ever and my black and white world was getting charcoaled to death.

*

_Buffy caught his chin with her knuckles as he grabbed her around the waist to subdue her. She heard him yelling something at her but she didn't pause. Grabbing his jacket for leverage, Buffy spun him away where he stumbled against an empty doorway. Buffy stalked after him, ready to grab him and swing him around to join the vampire still moaning on the ground behind them when he charged her._

_His body was like a brick wall on its own as he slammed into her, knocking the air out of her lungs and they landed in a tangle of limbs on the ground. He was growling something as she struggled underneath him. She whipped her arms out, catching his jaw again before his fist found her wrist and held it down as she jerked her body against his to buck him off._

_"Knock it off!" he snapped but she didn't listen. He was here to ruin things. That was the only explanation. He was bringing the darkness back into her life and she wanted nothing to do with. Ever again. Never… "Hey!"_

_"Get off!" Buffy snarled. She shoved her hands against his chest and he rocketed off of her, his back hitting the ground with a rush as she rolled back to her feet. He was moving too, getting to his feet quickly although she could see the strain in his face. Good. Pain was good. "Who are you?"_

_"Get the hell down, lady," he bit out, moving to shove her to the side but she stepped in his path, not realizing she was indirectly protecting the vampire starting to come back to life behind her._

_"No-" He didn't give her a second. One minute she was ready to grab his jacket and bowl him over again when he grabbed her arms and tried to swing her away. She spun with it, grabbing his jacket and ramming her palm into his nose. A dam broke and she felt the hot blood rushing into her hand as he cursed loudly over the sound of his nose cracking, letting her go._

_Buffy anticipated him spinning away from her, an instinctual move to protect his face from further damage, but he once again surprised her. Instead of doing the normal thing, his fist slammed into her temple._

_Fireworks erupted in her eyes and her ankles gave as she slumped against him. She felt him holding her up, his arms like bands of strength keeping her from falling. She tried to push past the irresistible urge to lie down and it turned into a strange out-of-body experience as he struggled to set her down without dropping her._

_And then he cursed, letting her slip to the ground. The jolt pushed her back into reality. He spun away and she felt the loose gravel on the concrete kick into her face from his boot as he faced the vampire._

_And like the snap of a rubber band of reality, James Dean didn’t matter anymore._

_Vampire. Vampire. Vampire._

_The sensation of a butcher’s knife stabbing her skull from his temple hit was overwhelming as she tried to roll to her feet, tried to find the target her body knew was right there. Ignoring the pain, Buffy's eyes snapped open. She heard her mystery man and the vampire trading blows, grunts of pain and whooshes of breath bouncing off the brick. Her senses were in a tizzy as she remembered the vampire…_

_Rolling to her hands and knees, Buffy grabbed onto the closest thing to help her find her feet. Something that happened to have a rotted wooden pallet sitting on top of it. Buffy rammed her fist into the pallet, breaking off the corner. Another hit got her a piece sharp enough to do what she needed._

_Buffy turned in time to see the vamp shoving her guy away. Instead of face-planting into the wall, he used it to ricochet himself off and turn and slam his fist into the vampire's face, which sent him tripping over his feet and sending him straight towards her._

_Buffy grabbed the vampire’s shoulder, stopping his momentum abruptly. She felt her balance give for a split second before she found her center; she felt the chill of the night warring with the faux heat of the vampire’s breath as he snapped at her and Buffy shoved the wood into his chest._

_He burst into dust with a loud pop. She took a deep breath as his body disintegrated, her hand squeezing the stake until she felt a splinter from the crappy wood carve a place in her palm… when the guy she had originally been chasing got right in her face._

_"What the hell was that?" he snapped, yanking the wood from her hand and throwing it down the alley._

_Buffy shook her head, staring at him. Her thoughts were still doing a weird tribal dance on a trampoline from the shot he had landed on her temple but she was aware enough to realize he wasn't exactly being grateful._

_"What the hell was what?” she asked. “I just saved you from that vampire turning your head into a party hat."_

_He opened his mouth to reply before snapping it shut, shaking his head at her in disbelief. He wiped his face with his jacket sleeve, the same leather jacket he had been wearing from the other night. It didn't do much but smear blood all over his face._

_"No, hey, I have a better question,” Buffy snapped, the anger towards him coming back and the need to understand what the hell he was doing burned hot in the spot where he had punched her. The urge to start hitting him again blazed inside her, blowing through the fog. “How about why the hell are you following me?"_

_"What?"_

_"Showing up at where I get my coffee and now you're at my house? What's next, pulp or no pulp in my orange juice? How many calories were in my muffin this morning?"_

_"Whoa, hold on a minute there, sister," he said gruffly, his voice getting darker as he dropped his bloody hand to stare at her. "You think I'm following you?"_

_"If the black hat fits."_

_"That's rich," he snorted as he yanked a handkerchief from his back pocket. The same one that he had pressed to her wounds that night. Buffy didn't like the tight feeling in her stomach as she watched him wipe up the blood, like she should just shut her mouth or something. Like she was wrong. She swallowed, pushing the feeling down as he pointed in the direction of MacLaren's. "Not that it's any of your goddamn business but I was getting a beer. And doing a friend a favor since you're obviously slacking around here."_

_"Excuse me?"_

_"Vampire, blondie," he snapped, waving at the dust pile between them. "That thing you just staked? Or don't they teach Slayers that kinda thing anymore?" The world stopped spinning and Buffy felt her lungs seize. Everything organ-related inside her suddenly dropped like she was falling. He knew what she was. "And that coffee bar was a coincidence. I don't have any damn reason to be following you, princess."_

_"What did you say?" she asked, breathless._

_He glared at her. "It was a coincidence." He mopped at his face again, checking his nose with the other hand as he shook his head. "And thanks for the unneeded kill, that was awesome. I didn't ask for your help and you sure as hell didn’t do me any favors.” He shook the bloody cloth out as he continued on, “Kind of wanted that one alive, but who the hell cares, right?"_

_"No…" she said. She stared at him. "You said… you said Slayer."_

_He didn't miss a beat. He shoved his handkerchief back into his pocket, sniffling up the rest of the blood. The sound was wet and gunky and it made her stomach turn._

_He gestured at her, his voice mocking, "If the freakishly skinny pants fit."_

_"How…" Buffy shook her head, the alleyway starting to spin. How had something as simple as a vampire attack turned into something so much more… what? Dangerous? Terrifying? Breathing was starting to get hard again as Buffy closed her eyes. “How do you know-“_

_"Hey," he said, his voice sharp. He held up both hands with an empty smile but the anger was vivid underneath the happy sheen. "Whatever. Vamp dead, unneeded favor done. How about next time you pick up some of the slack so I don't have to come around here anymore with your freaky stalker accusations, huh? Sounds good to me."_

_He didn't wait for a reply. He turned away, mumbling something under his breath as he felt his nose again and Buffy stood still for a second, ignoring the dick way he had just talked to her._

_He knew what she was. He knew. How the hell did he know what she was? A thousand scenarios were spinning through her mind like butterflies on crack. Was he stalking her because she was a Slayer? He could say no all he wanted but that didn't mean he wasn't actually there for her. Was the vampire a diversion? Was it a reason to draw her out? Was there someone bigger and badder behind this random guy? It wouldn't be the first time some big baddy used the darker side of humanity for its evil bidding._

_How did he know where to find her? How did he know anything about her at all?_

_"Hey!" she yelled, running after him. He didn't stop and she saw him shaking his head as he neared the other end of the alley. She grabbed his shoulder, stopping him roughly and he practically snarled as she yanked him back into the darkness. "I don’t think so, buddy. How about you explain what the hell is going on. You appear out of nowhere and you know what I am and I'm supposed to be okay with you prancing in and out like this?"_

_"Are you serious?"_

_"What's the deal, huh?" she continued, her voice acidic. She crossed her arms. "Who's pulling the strings? I'm right here, you might as well get whatever the hell you have planned out of the way so I can get back to my life." He just stared at her like she was the stupid one, his mouth gaped as he processed her words and Buffy rolled her eyes. "Wow, cut you to the quick so soon. You really thought I'd buy this random Joe-schmoe business?"_

_"Wow," was all he said. His shoulders jerked with a silent chuckle as he turned to walk back towards MacLaren's. Buffy grabbed him again but he reacted this time. Buffy didn’t expect him to move so quickly as he spun into her grip, grabbing her arm and yanking her against his chest, curling her arm around her back and trapping her other between them._

_"Hey, let go of me!"_

_"Stop hitting me,” he growled, abruptly letting her go and Buffy stumbled back. He glared at her and she glared back. “I save your ass and this is the shit I'm getting. You are one screwed chick, you know that?”_

_“I didn’t ask for your help that night, or don’t you remember showing up out of the random blue? If that was supposed to placate me having you around every other day, try again, buddy.” The anger filling her felt good. It felt warm and familiar._

_“What...” He laughed incredulously. “Are you… Are you crazy?”_

_“Me?”_

_“How happy would you be with those bloodsuckers using your thigh bones to clean out their teeth, huh?" he asked, his voice almost smug and Buffy felt her heart leap into her throat as he continued, stalking towards her now. She backed away as his eyes darkened and focused on her with frightening intensity and for a moment she was just a girl, in an alley with a scary guy coming at her. “I know I walked in on a Slayer about to die that night, getting her ass handed to her because she didn’t know which end of the stupid stick she was holding.”_

_Buffy gritted her teeth, her stomach dropping again at that word. “You don’t know anything about me.”_

_“I know you're the one who got herself trapped in a vamp sandwich. Not me."_

_“Then what the hell are you doing here?” she asked, her voice rough. She felt the ball of emotions roiling inside and climbing up her gullet._

_“I was here because a vamp was making this street its own personal buffet line,” he said, taking measured steps closer, towards her. “You’re the one who came tearing out here like a bat out of hell. I was fine leaving things the way they were. You’re acting like I dragged your ass out here, like I threw it down that alley in the first place. A guy wants a beer and suddenly I’m creeping up your ass for your bra size when in reality…" He threw his arms out. "I just wanted a goddamn beer.”_

_Buffy felt like throwing up at the stomach acid rollercoaster ripping through her chest, the feeling that… she didn't even know - it was something ominous, something dark and dank and heavy and… This man was trouble and seeing him in her bar? In her place, the one place where the world he clearly represented was so not welcome? Where death and gruesome things were a different lifetime, a different place, everything different and so not what he life was about now…_

_Buffy closed her eyes. Her thoughts and emotions were moving too fast to focus on - she went from confused to angry to freaking out to wanting to run away to wanting to fight…_

_He didn’t stop, coming closer and she took a step back in reaction. “Don’t come at me because your head lives in your ass. Your life is your life. You don’t want to help people? That’s your gig, and definitely not my friggin’ problem. So hop back into your little Stepford life in there and stay the hell out of my way. And while you're at it, avoid the stalker accusations, sweetheart. It's pathetic.”_

_Buffy scoffed, shaking her head in numb amazement. Was this happening?_

_He made a mocking face in return before narrowing his eyes. “Let’s try this again. I’m gonna go that way,” he said, pointing towards the end of the alley before pointing towards MacLaren’s, “and you go that way.” And then he was off._

_Buffy stood in the alley, her arms dangling uselessly at her sides. She crossed her arms, her lungs feeling like they were full of quicksand as she watched him walk away from her and she felt the angry sting in her nails from where she was digging them into her forearm. He reached the mouth of the alley, never once bothering to look back to make sure she wasn’t chasing him down, when she said, “Stay away from me!”_

_“I was never freaking near you,” he replied, his voice sharp as it echoed against the craggy brick walls back to her._

_And then he was gone._

*

I stood there for about fifteen minutes, just staring at the wall, trying to put things in order. But nothing was going in order. I eventually headed back to MacLaren’s, ready to put it all back inside the shiny new box in my head labeled 'No.'

But not before picking up the nearest trash bag and throwing it against the wall… where it promptly burst open and covered me in rotted fruit.

Thanks, universe.

And how does the universe repay me?

It was giftwrapped and hand-delivered to me two nights later.


	4. Chapter Four - June 2014

**Chapter Four - June 2014 (two days later)**

_backyard people and they work all day_   
_tired of the speeches_   
_and the way that the reasons keep changin’_   
_just to make the words rhyme_

_“Oh my god,” Robin said slowly, shaking her head as she licked her lips, staring at the bar. Buffy barely glanced up, playing with the condensation rings on the table as they waited for the rest of the group. All Buffy could concentrate on was how the circles never seemed to break… they just went with the flow, creating new ones in opposition of the damage her finger was doing. She hated the stupid condensation rings. “Buffy, this is one you don’t ignore.”_

_Buffy grunted._

_Robin didn’t seem to notice. “That’s fine,” she said dreamily. “God, he kind of reminds me of Simon.” Buffy finally looked up, watching Robin shift in her seat before biting her lower lip. “And Simon was… not… well, he was…”_

_Buffy lifted an eyebrow, waiting for a response, overly aware of how very out of character she was right now and how little she cared. She just wanted to… brood. Put her vampire-with-a-soul cap on. She wasn’t in the mood for anything else tonight, much less Robin waxing poetry over some poor schmuck. Especially one that reminded her of the Loser Wagon Simon._

_“What? There’s nothing wrong with vicariously living through someone else to relive the highlights of what could have been a really awesome thing,” Robin replied before looking away. After a long pause, her eyes drifted back towards the bar. “Trust me, there is really, really nothing wrong with it.”_

_With a sigh that was borderline overly aggravated, Buffy turned. And stiffened, inhaling quickly as she saw James Dean sitting at the bar… almost identical to what had happened two nights earlier. She gaped, shock flooding her chest followed quickly by everything she had shoved away a few nights ago and had decided should never be analyzed._

_This freaking guy. This freaking stupid freaking dumb guy._

_“Are you freaking kidding me?” she whispered, watching as he was once again talking to Carl. He had a dark-colored beer sitting in front of him, mostly empty… just like two nights ago. And just like two nights ago, he dropped a few bills on the counter, nodding to something that Carl was saying. They seemed to be something akin to genuine friends or something judging by the way they were acting. She watched Carl nod his head towards the entrance and the mystery guy follow the nod discreetly._

_What. The. Hell. Was. This._

_“Was I right?” she heard Robin saying and Buffy was loathe to turn away, but she forced herself to. She turned back to Robin, a tight smile on her face as she managed a small nod, but she didn’t see Robin. She didn’t see the bar, the stupid condensation rings or the moldy-looking nachos. Every sense in her body was tuned into James Dean and for the first time in a very, very long time, she felt her Slayer senses dancing to life on their own._

*

Two days was apparently plenty of time to become super levelheaded about the mystery guy. Practice makes perfect, right? Well I was getting my feet wet again with the world of the weird and this sudden appearance by James Dean wasn't pushing my 'That's Weird, Ask Me How' button like it had before.

You can already see where this is going, can't you?

*

_What was he doing here? And what did he have to do with Carl? Was Carl in on this? And what did it have to do with her? A small voice in the back of her head told her she was being ridiculous, but was she? Why else would he be there? She hadn’t heard about anything weird or supernatural-y happening around here, and she would have definitely noticed. Manhattan had had a sincerely low supernatural kill-rate by her estimation… at least the times she paid attention._

_Which she had been paying attention… right?_

_Buffy didn’t see Lily and Marshall joining them at the table. She didn’t hear what they said or listen as Robin pointed out James Dean or as Lily made a comment that was the perfect Lily thing to say: lewd while sounding innocent._

_The only thing Buffy heard was the sound of heavy boots hitting the floor, heading towards the exit. She risked a glance towards the door, watched him leave, once again not sparing a look behind him. And just like two nights earlier, she didn’t bother to think._

_“I gotta go… do… something,” she said, barely managing to get it out before she was up and flying towards the door._

_She missed Lily’s words, “She’s kinda getting into that weird habit where she just… poof.”_

_“Definitely going into overtime with the mystery girl thing,” Marshall replied._

_She didn’t stick around for the rest. Buffy’s heels slapped against the concrete stairs as she followed him out of the bar._

_“Hey!” she said, her voice bouncing out into the street, calling attention from everyone on the block but she didn’t care. He paused, bowing his head before looking over his shoulder. “You have got some serious nerve.”_

_He didn’t reply, turning slowly, looking amused._

_She threw her hands up. “Really, nothing to say?”_

_“What the hell am I supposed to say?” he drawled back, smirking at her. “How ‘bout a ‘here we go again’? Does that sound alright?”_

_“Actually, what sounds about right is fessing up,” she replied hotly, stalking towards him. He backed up with his hands up, the amusement never leaving his face. “Spit it out, stalker boy.”_

_“Stalker boy?” he echoed. Buffy’s fingers curled into a fist and this time he did stop abruptly, his face all business. “I’m here for a vamp. Again.”_

_“Right,” Buffy sneered._

_“No, I’m telling the God’s honest truth here,” he said sincerely. Gone was the abraded man from a few nights ago; in his place was someone calmer… someone easier to believe. Buffy didn’t believe it for a second. He gestured to the bar. “Doing that favor that I thought I had taken care of a few days ago. Turns out that little problem was actually a dual problem. I’m here to take care of the rest.”_

_Buffy moved to reply but he didn’t give her a chance, waving his hand between them in a cutting gesture as he smirked coldly._

_“But not that you care, right?” His voice was deadly calm, his eyes dead-set on her as he talked. “You who sit around, yucking it up with your buddies, letting innocent people die just a few feet away.” Buffy’s stomach dropped at his words. What was he talking about? But she didn’t rise to the bait. He continued, stepping closer and Buffy reciprocated in the opposite direction, stepping back as he advanced. “So while you’re in there arguing about the benefits of boxers vs. briefs, I’m out here doing your job. So how about you return that favor and leave me to my business.”_

_Buffy felt anything resembling words dying in her throat as he stared down at her. He was talking at her like he knew exactly what she was doing, like he knew exactly why she was out here chasing him around, like he knew exactly what she was avoiding and that all of this was just her… being avoidy. It was unnerving and she felt a sting travel across her skin that made her head ache._

_This was probably the right moment to do something along the lines of yelling at him or slapping him. Play the part, do what she went out there to do, tell him to leave her alone… Because really, where did he come off? He was the one showing up in random places, not her. This was her city, not his. This was her bar, just like it had been her coffee shop, her sidewalk, her… Buffy felt the weight of his stare on her face as she tried to process his words, his tone, his silent accusations... She didn’t know what to say. She hadn't known what to say when she had followed him out here and she didn't like the way he was talking at her like she was the moron._

_The anger she had so self-righteously felt a minute ago had left nothing behind but an icy cavern in her body._

_She had a list in her head of things she should say, things that a normal person would say like… how dare he talk to her like this, like he knew her, knew her life… she’ll call the cops if she sees him again because he was talking in a strange form of elfin gibberish… that he hadn't seen her throwing a two hundred pound vampire through the air that night, that she had been in shock, that adrenaline had replaced her blood, that she didn’t remember any of it… she didn’t even know what a vampire was, much less a Slayer and she had been caught between fifty shades of surprise when they had talked before, so leave her alone…_

_All the things she should say because she was normal. Because she had a normal life._

_But… she had nothing. So she said nothing._

*

Because he was right. It didn't matter how totally wigged I was that he was talking like we were old Slayer College buddies… he was right.

But see, here’s something you’ve probably already guessed about me: I’m stubborn. And a lot of the time, not even on purpose.

*

_A pregnant pause filled the space between them, the tension thick enough to shave with rope._

_“You have got me curious though," he finally said when the only thing coloring the silence was dead air._

_“Curious?” Buffy spat, a feeling of relief spreading through her like warm water as the pressure valve from his words released. She felt that self-righteous anger coming right back. “I can't even begin to describe how much you're barking up the wrong tree.”_

*

There you go, Buffy, that’s the line you wanted…

*

_He took a step towards her before circling around her slowly. Buffy stayed still, feeling like he was sizing her up. She felt her back prickle where his eyes grazed across her shoulders and she tensed, ready for whatever he was going to throw at her._

_“Why would a Slayer who obviously knows a thing or two about vamps just sit around while they parade the streets, ripping everyone’s throats out?”_

_Buffy frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”_

_He smirked. “You’re lying.”_

_“Look who’s talking,” Buffy snapped back, instantly feeling like she was back in third grade the moment the words left her lips. He laughed and she bristled. “What the hell do you know about Slayers anyway? About vampires, about any of this?”_

_He nodded in time with her words, contemplating them before shrugging nonchalantly. Like they were talking about the benefits of blue cotton candy compared to pink. “I’ve been around a while. Bound to run into a few. Especially since the Slayer la revolución explosion a while back, you chicks are a dime a goddamn dozen anymore.”_

*

You know black mold? It felt like I had black mold growing in my stomach.

*

_“Yeah… met one who kept calling vampires Cookie Monster and one covered in tattoos that turned out to have holy water in them, so whenever a vamp touched her, they’d burn. Pretty neat trick.” Buffy couldn’t even begin to describe the way her stomach was curdling into sour milk as he continued on. She found herself wondering who these girls were before reminding herself her due was done. She was out. And he had to get out too. “One girl thought she was the vampire messiah and another had some serious claws on her.” Buffy couldn’t help but flinch at his words, the innuendo all over them. “But I gotta say, I’ve never met one so deeply in denial as you are.”_

_“You-”_

_“Especially to let three people die on her street without even raising a finger,” he continued, ignoring her and Buffy’s heart stopped._

_“What?”_

_“Hit a nerve?” he asked with an empty smile. “So is that why you sit around, doing nothing - you don’t care?”_

_“You don’t know anything about me,” Buffy bit out, hating the way his words rang through her head like church bells. Was he telling the truth? Had she sat by and let people die, right here, so close to her? Hadn’t she thought the same thing that night so long ago: people walking by while her life hung in the balance a few feet away, completely oblivious? “My life is none of your business.”_

_“Funny how suddenly it’s none of my business." He pointed at her. "You already made it my business when you almost died. And all over again by coming out here and attacking me about 'playing hero'." He broke out the sarcastic quotey fingers._

_“Well, I didn't die, did I?“_

_“Yeah, thanks to me.”_

_“God, could you be more cocky?”_

_He smirked, his eyes casting a light shade of green when the Christmas lights up year round around the window of the bar caught them. Buffy locked her jaw as he stared at her, his eyes saying so much more._

_Buffy really, really wanted to punch him. Maybe it was the way his jacket lapels were jacked up or maybe it was that stupid smirk on his face or maybe she really could see how much he seemed to know about what went bump in the night and what it meant having a role in that… or it was probably the fact that he was pulling out all the stops on the “turn this around on Buffy” trip and that it was working… anyway you looked at it, he was seriously asking to get punched._

_Even as a long moment later his stance softened; even as he backed off, almost like he’d come to some conclusion about her that he wasn’t willing to share._

_Which only pissed her off more. Who the hell was this guy? Who did he think he was and where the hell did he come off attacking her like he knew anything? He was the one appearing out of nowhere and he was the one spouting out what were probably lies._

*

Denial.

*

_“So what?” she asked, her arms swinging, her voice cracking as her mind spun through the possibility of people dying right outside her doorstep and she just stepped right over them. Her mouth moved without the go-ahead from her brain as she talked to talk. “You want a blood sample? You want a few pieces of hair for your stalker collection?”_

_He didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he backed up to the top of the short stack of stairs leading down to the bar. He angled his head, his eyes glued to the window. She stared at his back, wanting to move, wanting to act but unable to, like she was frozen. She was getting angry and she was getting pretty close to the freak-out edge, but she still waited. Now would be the time to turn and walk away, to tell him to go screw himself with his weirdness and just… leave._

_That it wasn’t her life anymore and that she really didn’t want it…_

_But she didn't move._

_And she didn’t want to wonder why._

_He finally said, “You know you don’t look like you belong in there.”_

_“Excuse me?” Buffy asked. She opened her mouth to vault into another litany of stalking facts but he cut her off._

_He glanced over his shoulder. “Do you know you just sit and stare at the table for about ninety-five percent of the conversation?”_

_“I don’t... stare." Buffy shot him an aggravated glare. "I… talk. What… so you were watching me." He rolled his eyes. "Where do you come off analyzing my every move? Who the hell are you?”_

_“So you’re honestly happy sitting there talking about Carrie Fisher’s bra? Not that that’s not a viable debate, but...”_

_Buffy narrowed her eyes. “Yes, in fact I am.” Buffy pierced her lips before rolling her eyes in frustration. “We're playing this game, fine. You ask questions, I ask questions. How do you know so much about vampires?”_

_And were you just waiting until the last minute to drop the bomb that you don’t know what you’re talking about, that vampires aren’t real and that you’ll leave me alone?_

_Buffy felt a sliver of ice cut through her stomach. She couldn't escape the 'something's afoot here' feeling that was mixing with the knowledge that this guy really wasn't such a bad guy. Stupid out-of-use instincts._

_The guy paused, his eyes meeting hers. His face crinkled, his thought process all over him as she watched the corners of his eyes melt together. It was suddenly eerie how much she could read on him as he stared at her: in the way his eyes moved around her face, the way he angled his shoulders towards her, the way he stood. Like he knew her, like they had had this conversation a million times before, like he was annoyed with her, before shrugging it all away, turning back into ice himself._

_And he looked like he been to Hell and back. He just looked so tired, the shadows of the streetlights highlighting the circles under his eyes. It was a resolved tired. Like... well, like she looked when she thought no one was looking._

_But that was back in Sunnydale. Not here._

_James Dean didn’t reply fast enough._

_“What, got nothing to say except for, ‘Hey, I’m a creepy guy that creepy trolls after random girls?’”_

_He stared at her for another second, that stupid limp smile back on his face, not responding. Instead, he pointed over his shoulder. “This is a side gig.” Carl. “I’m here for a friend, nailing down a few demons.” Buffy shivered at his word choice, looking away. He glanced down the street, not showing any indication that he had seen her jump at his words. His voice was casual again, like they talked about this sort of thing every day. “He lives a few blocks up on 10th.”_

_“Why do I care where your friend lives?” she asked, hating how her voice shook as she saw the light at the end of the crap tunnel he was walking with this train of thought. Her emotions were roiling around inside her in a pretty intense ‘clusterfuck’ motion. They turned to knots as he continued._

_He ignored her, shrugging. “Gig’s a tough one...”_

_“I didn’t ask,” Buffy cut in sharply. He ignored her._

_“Not my thing really, anymore, but can’t exactly have the evil nipping at the population, can we?” She stared at the ground again. He ducked his head to catch her eye, his tone saying everything his words weren’t. “You know, if you’re ever... I don’t know, itching to get away from the rousing conversations in there...”_

_The sarcasm dripping from his words were like shards of glass through her entrails._

_"So… so what? What are…" Buffy trailed off, digging her nails into her flesh, staring at the ground before swinging her eyes back to his, her voice steely. "Don't ask."_

_"Not a lot of options in this city. Hunters tend to… avoid this…" Dean waved to his surroundings. "Crap-heap of humanity." He snorted. “Unless you’re an oversexed warlock wannabe who has friends in high places… or a chick in serious denial with stick-girl fashion sense...”_

_Buffy's laugh was hollow. She ignored the rush that his invitation brought as she blanched at the thought of being out there again, fighting; a mixture of absolute denial clashed with the lingering effects of the night of her attack and what had happened in the alley not twenty feet away. No. No, she couldn’t. "No. No… I can't. Are you… are you out of your mind?"_

_She stepped away, her back slamming into something metal and hard as she brought a hand up to her neck, her shoulders caving in - like she was protecting herself. From what? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. She felt like she was sitting outside the scene, watching bits and pieces falling off her life at a rapid rate. What was this conversation? Who was this guy?_

_“This feels like a pretty sane request," he replied seriously, his eyes focused on her in such a way that made her wince - his stare felt like a literal weight on her back, the knowledge in his eyes feeling like a spike being drilled through her spine, as she shook her head again._

_“I’m not... helping you. Ever. No. I don’t… I can't help you.”_

_The guy just nodded, not looking surprised to be let down - like he knew exactly what would happen and that had been his point - before glancing back at the window into the bar. Buffy didn’t turn to see what he was looking at, unwilling to take her eyes off of him. “Suit yourself.”_

_And then he turned away from her, heading down the street. He chose an alley instead of the sidewalk as he disappeared._

_Buffy's heart seized as the conversation wound through her head; at the thought of what he had been asking, at the thought him knowing what a Slayer was and that she happened to be one and him just being in her bar - her world, her place, her sanctuary… it saturated her bones as she found herself spinning around to the steps that led to her apartment. Her hand still shook at her throat as she sat down..._

_Had he honestly asked her to... hunt? A hunter. Those had been his words… he was a hunter. Buffy closed her eyes, her mind flying back a dozen years to when she had met that lunatic hunting Oz - Cain. He had been a hunter, hunting someone who had no business being hunted. But she didn’t get the same feeling with this guy that she got with Cain... this guy was just... something else._

_Something… still bad…_

_Bad. All bad. Because that world was bad. It was a world without light, a world of only darkness, and she wanted nothing to do with that again…_

_“Buffy?”_

_“What, yeah?” Shooting to her feet, Buffy felt her hand awkwardly waving before she could stop it as Ted appeared. She made a fist to cover the action. “Hey.”_

_“Hey. Whatcha doin’?”_

_“Nothing. Just... getting some fresh air. Air that is fresh. For the lungs ‘cause you know… you need that.”_

_Ted shot her a small smile before pointing his thumb of his shoulder. “Were you talking to that guy?”_

_“What guy?” Buffy immediately asked brightly before shaking her head at the dumb question. She felt like she was blushing and was glad it was dark out as she tried to wrangle some control over her brain’s lack of word filter at the thought of ‘that guy’ having been inside MacLaren’s. Her voice still cracked. “Yeah, that guy…" Yeah, what about that guy? Her mouth moved without her brain's permission. "I know him through work. He’s an... artist. A really weird artist with really... abstract ideas. He just happened to be... here. We were just saying hi.”_

_“Oh. That’s cool.”_

_Buffy smiled faintly. “Yeah. Cool.”_

_“Did you come out of MacLaren’s? Were you going back in?”_

_Buffy swallowed, forcing the tight smile to her lips. She felt like her world had just gotten turned upside down and tossed into a blender. And strangely, she wasn't entirely freaking out so much as… well, okay, she was freaking out. The surge of panic she felt at the thought of going into the bar, where that man had been… this guy - this guy who suddenly knew more about her than anyone in this entire city and she didn’t even know his name - filled her. But what else would she do? Run? Hide?_

_Like hell._

_Pushing the overwhelming panic-filled balloon labeled 'my-world-go-crashy' in her chest down, Buffy nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.” Taking his outstretched hand, Buffy’s fingers wound through his as they headed back into the bar. “So… how was work?"_

*

If you’re thinking this guy spent the entire night making me feel like bugs were crawling all over my skin... you’d be right. Because he did. Even when he was gone, even though I had told him to stay away from me, I spent the night imagining him at the bar, sitting and talking and drinking and… invading.

The minute we left the bar, I studied every nook and cranny around in the street, and they were blissfully empty. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I felt like someone had just lifted an entire steel building off my shoulders.

He was gone.

Denial felt good. Like those really old pairs of sweats that you would never wear in the light of day but you wear when you are alone. Really comfortable and really… good.

It didn't last.

It never lasts, does it? Eventually Denial isn’t just a river in Africa.

But it wasn’t the random guy and it wasn’t my intense desire to go back to where things had been just a few weeks ago…

It was guilt.

The guilt built up inside me and just train-rolled my entire body. I had said no to helping people. Even though the mystery fog surrounding this random guy was so thick you couldn't see your own nose, I believed him when he said he was there to help people. He had helped me, hadn't he? My desire to see him being the bad guy lost a tragic battle to reality.

After that, the dreams started up again. But these weren’t Slayer-like dreams, these were ‘I’m letting everyone around me die’ dreams. I watched Dawn getting sucked into the big giant hole of energy. Ted’s neck snapped by a vampire. I watched Giles’ throat being slit. Lily being drowned. Spike’s body burning up before my eyes... I’d barely remember the hows or the whats when I woke up but the feeling stuck. Along with waking up covered in sweat and freaking out because I had watched another loved one die, I was drowning inside in this feeling. This nasty, icky feeling of debilitating guilt.

And that wasn’t even the worse of it. I started paying attention again. How I had managed to live in New York for so long and not see the intense... I don’t know, pain around me. People were getting mugged, abused and killed everywhere. Some of it was supernatural and some of it wasn’t. I started actually reading the newspapers and I started picking out the ones I knew weren’t natural deaths... especially the ones close to my apartment… just like James Dean had alluded to. The ones right outside the art gallery I worked at. The ones near my favorite coffee shop. Everything right outside on my doorstep and I did nothing.

I had done nothing. Ever since I left Cleveland to start over, I had done nothing. Countless lives had been stolen right under my nose while I sat back and laughed, drank and lived a life that... that was starting to feel like it wasn’t mine anymore.

And all it had taken to open that well was a good ol’ fashioned night of me almost dying myself and some really annoying stranger who somehow knew more about me than I did to crack something open in this noggin.

But… denial is still a long damn river.


	5. Chapter Five - July 2014

**Chapter Five - July 2014 (one week later)**

_well there’s a change in the wind_   
_you know the signs don’t lie_   
_such a strange feeling and I don’t know why_   
_it’s takin’… such a long time…_

_The hanger of her dry cleaning was digging unpleasantly into her fingers where it was hooked over her shoulder as she made her way home. Three suits hung wrapped in the plastic wrap swaying behind her, mocking her and her wallet. Damn, that place cost a fortune. But they did a good job. And clean suits usually meant happier clients because you weren't looking the part of a bum. That was always nice._

_Checking her watch, she decided a quick stop for a late night jolt was in the works as she had a floor plan to work on when she got back to the apartment - to capture the best light and the correct locations for the different genres of art that were going up this weekend._

_Changing directions, Buffy ignored the feeling of trepidation in the pit of her stomach when she saw the alley directly before her that would take her straight to the other side and straight to her favorite coffee spot. When that trepidation turned into a knot, Buffy shook her head at herself before heading into the alley._

_But really, how many alleys had she practically lived in in her entire life? She was being a dolt._

_But as the overwhelming stench of wet garbage started filling her nostrils, reminding her of what she was beginning to think would never go away - the one that said, "Run!" whenever she saw a dark place, like some crazy trauma victim or something - she still reached back to check her purse, to make sure the stake she never left the apartment without anymore was still in there._

_Yep. A flood of relief released the knot._

_She was about halfway down the alley when she heard the gasp and a low voice that didn’t sound anything like a nice, polite person asking quietly for the time. Instead of the straight shot of fear she would have expected, she felt a surge of curiosity and… strangely, calmness._

_Buffy slowed, angling her head when she heard the whimper and she didn’t bother with pretending like she wasn’t there to scope out the scene, to see what was happening, to gage what her reaction should be. She just acted._

_Buffy dropped the suits and stepped up, grabbing the mugger/rapist/jerkwad’s shoulder and yanked him back._

_"What the hell?" he yelped as he stumbled, the knife he had been holding falling to the ground with a clatter while the frightened woman trembled against the wall. Buffy didn’t let him get a word in as he started spewing something about interrupting and her being next and blah blah blah..._

_"Didn't your mother teach you any manners?" Buffy asked. Grabbing his hair through his knit cap, Buffy rammed his face into her knee. He cried out, his hands flailing blindly before falling backwards, his head slapping the ground with an echo._

_Buffy sucked in a deep breath at the exhilaration rushing through her blood, feeling her lips pulling back in a smile before turning to the woman. “You okay?”_

_The woman took a quick breath that sounded like a donkey squealing, shaking her head before changing her mind and nodding. Her hand was plastered to her chest as she found her legs were able to work and she took a tentative step forward, her eyes glued on her moaning attacker. “He just... he caught me off guard. I wasn’t-“_

_“I know. You’re safe now. He won't get you. Although another safe thing is running. Lots of running and definitely an encouraged activity to take up right about now.” The woman frowned, like she couldn’t comprehend what Buffy was saying. The guy on the ground groaned a leaking trail of obscenities as he struggled to stand in his dizzy spell and the attackee jumped. “It’s okay. He won’t come after you. I promise."_

_The woman shook her head in bewilderment, clasping her hand around Buffy’s arm. “Thank you.”_

*

That night would be the part of the book where you make the note “something shifty just shifted here.”

I was the shifty thing that shifted.

While it’s easy to doodle in the margins of a book, not so easy in real life. It took me a second to catch up.

Things in my shiny Manhattan life stayed on track just like they were... for about a week. Things were clean and simple and even-keeled and I was able to skirt along the edges of whatever was starting to grow in the back of my mind.

That night, one week with four days and change past the visit from Mystery Guy, I went for a walk.

I still don’t really remember what happened that night other than I woke up in bed, completely calm and lucid. I grabbed my purse with my handy stake and… I just went for a walk. A walk that lasted four hours. A walk that focused on creepy alleys and dark streets and empty doorways - the places I hadn't actively ventured into in years. Away from the safety of the streetlights and the numbers of the Manhattan streets. A walk that ended with me killing my second vampire in over seven years.

I went for a walk a.k.a. I went hunting.

It definitely wasn’t a wham bam, thank you, ma’am kind of situation. Lucky for me the vamp I found that night was just a fledgling - a baby, just popped out of the coffin womb and ready to take on the world. Alright, maybe not coffin womb - not exactly a large amount of open cemeteries floating around by where I lived - I think she came from a dumpster somewhere but same difference. You know what I’m talking about. Anyway, she barely knew how to use her own fangs, but that didn’t mean it took her long to realize that she was stronger than she used to be. And what I mean by that was she was no half-starving mugger.

If I had stumbled onto another gang like that first night, I wouldn’t be sitting here, talking to you.

I would be a vampire dinner with no James Dean side to save me.

Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, buddy.

Anyway, something had clicked that night. Something that... I don’t know, jolted me. Woke me up. Got that oatmeal raisin inside me burning up like a hot little tamale.

Because suddenly I was going to the gym. I started running, I started doing this weird form of yoga on a wiggly board and I even did those shadow sparring exercises in front of mirrors. At first it was easy. Everyone in New York goes to a gym. Walking around isn’t enough to keep up with the skinny demands of fashion so I had a reason, an excuse, for everyone when I couldn’t make it to MacLaren’s one night. And then it turned into three nights I couldn't make it and then I was barely there.

The excuses started running dry. And pretty quickly too. Like freakishly quick.

It would take me a week after my first walk to feel like I was ready to take another walk. Not that I wasn’t in shape. My body responded wicked quick, almost like it had just been sleeping. Hibernating, like a destiny-strong bear. Waiting for something to wake it up.

And boy, did it wake up.

So it wasn’t anything physical that was stopping me. Instead it started getting way evident that I was becoming two Buffys; that oatmeal raisin Buffy and chocolate chip Buffy were, well... clashing. Getting really Titan-y.

But sometimes chocolate doesn’t go good with anything, not matter how hard you try.

And then the hunts started. A lot of them. Mostly after everyone was asleep and always for hours at a time. The first week out, I had slain three vampires. The second week? Twelve.

Destiny-strong oatmeal raisin bear was back in the saddle. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Things with Ted were getting a little strained.

Obviously.

*

_“Another walk, huh?”_

_“Yeah. Just... feel like walking.”_

_Ted dropped the papers he was reading, jumping up from the couch. “I’ll join you. See what all this crazy walking stuff is about.”_

_“Oh no, you don’t have to. I’m just... walking.”_

_“I know.”_

_“But, uh... Well. Oh look, it’s raining.”_

_“That’s what these crazy sticks are for,” Ted replied, rolling right along with her, yanking a bright blue umbrella out. “They expand so you don't get wet. Like the dilophosauras in Jurassic Park when the naughty computer guy got killed. Fun fact: that dinosaur is actually represented inaccurately, he couldn't spit that crap and there was no… flare thing that looks like an umbrella." Ted stared at the umbrella. "So that reference doesn't actually apply…”_

_"And it wasn't blue," Buffy offered lamely before smiling and throwing her purse on the ground. “You know, walking in the rain only looks romantic in the movies. It usually only leads to bad things like colds and hypothermia. Let’s stay in.”_

*

Smooth. Imagine that smoothness about a hundred times over.

It got worse as we went from a couple who did all sorts of crap together to a couple who suddenly had one half wanting to do things on her own.

*

_Buffy lifted her head as silently as she could, glancing at the nightstand. 1:32 a.m. Licking her lips, Buffy glanced over her shoulder where Ted laid, his back to her, his body moving evenly with his breathing._

_Feeling like she wasn’t in fact in her early thirties and was actually back in high school, Buffy gently swung the comforter back, easing off the mattress without it making a sound._

_She was grabbing her sneakers and opening the bedroom door when she heard the sheets rub against each other. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see Ted lift his head to check the clock before looking at her. She paused, hoping he would assume he was just dreaming._

_No such luck._

_“What’s up?”_

_“Just got the munchies,” she whispered back, easing out the door. “I’ll be right back.”_

*

I waited about forty-five minutes to make sure he was asleep before I went out. That night, I got three vamps.

I know what you’re thinking. Or what you want to say. Why didn’t I just tell him? He knew how weird I was about my past and that it was mostly a big dark blotch in my head, but wouldn’t it have been easier to just tell him the truth? Explain all the details I had conveniently omitted and explain that I wasn’t sneaking out to meet up with some random dude in a bar across town but was actually slaying vampires? And hey, he was super laid back and super open to the idea of otherworldly things - the man's knowledge of Star Wars would shock you… so he probably would have been just fine with it.

So much easier said than done. Trust me.

As far as I was concerned, it was high school all over again. Ted, Lily, Marshall, Robin and Barney were my high school buddies, the people I saw every day, laughed with, learned with, enjoyed being around... and at night, I did my real job. I had done it once before, why couldn’t I do it again?

Right. ‘Cause life always hands you a bowl of chocolate dipped cherries and says, “Yours for free! Enjoy!” And then when you bite into them, all you get is a bunch of empty stale air because life is a bitch like that.


	6. Chapter Six - August 2014

**Chapter Six - August 2014 (five weeks later)**

_you can’t stop what has begun_   
_signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion_   
_we all have a dark side, to say the least_   
_and dealing in death is the nature of the beast_

_Buffy jogged down the street, easily gliding past the few people still lingering as night fell. The scent of rain was strong in the air, a threat of downpour heavy in the clouds lingering too close to the cityscape to be anything but. She couldn’t wait - everything always smelled so much better after it rained, like the moisture wiped out the crap that glazed over the city like a second skin._

_It smelled fresh and clean, such a rare thing in New York City. Plus, the hunting was better during the storms. People were so distracted by finding shelter and avoiding the largest puddles known to man that they were easy prey._

_And hey, she was a walking/jogging example of that._

_But this time the tables were turned in her favor. Because she was the one hunting. And it felt… well, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious._

_"Did I really just think that?" Buffy asked herself between pants, her eyes darting around as she moved. She wore a light pack on her back, full of holy water, crosses and stakes, like she was back in tenth grade, hunting for the first time in Sunnydale, unsure of her abilities and what she was capable of in full throttle._

_Every night was becoming just like this. The gym was nice and all but running out in the streets was even better. Exercise, sure, but it was a perfect excuse to do it alone. She was starting to feel a little guilty about the continual Ted blockage happening, but he had no place in this part of her life. He never had, which is why she had never said anything about it._

_No one but her belonged in these dark spaces between the lines of her life._

_And it was strangely liberating. And interesting since when this had been the case when she was seventeen, it had felt like the sky falling around her, suffocating her without a care. Hence the reason Willow and Xander had gotten the tagalong special in high school. But now? There was a new level of appreciation she hadn't had before._

_A feeling of liberation she hadn’t had before._

_Although she did manage to promise that she would be at MacLaren's afterwards. Get a little fix before the night was through. She had just… stopped going and that wasn't very nice. And Ted had pointed it out, that worried frown line between his eyes and Buffy had just jumped in, saying things were fine and that she could put the exercise-aholic tendencies aside for a while._

_But just a while. A while being defined as an hour or so._

_A distant cramping started up in Buffy’s abdomen and she quickly glanced around. Getting further north. Turning into a long alley, she stopped, hunching over to catch her breath. A crack of thunder echoed through the sky and Buffy looked up just as a bolt of lightening speared into a trundle of clouds. Storm was close. Wiping her forehead, Buffy stood, looking around before making her way through the large space between buildings._

_It never ceased to amaze her how much activity she had actively ignored while living here. And she had thought the actual streets were nasty, especially on trash day? Yeah, try three months’ worth of abandoned garbage, rats ga-freaking-lore living between the cracks of humanity, human beings using that filth for warmth against the seasonal weather and the nasties that used them as a buffet line. Well, okay, they used the healthy ones as a buffet line._

_You could call the people who had some sort of disease in their blood lucky for not feeling the sting of a vampire’s fangs in their throat, but that was cruel since nature had other plans for them._

_It was the best hunting ground because it was the best cover. Both sides got it and both sides abided. ‘Nuff said._

_Reaching back, Buffy felt the Velcro-locked hole in the bottom of her bag where she had easy access to stakes. The sharp point of one such weapon nudged her through the nylon and she nodded to herself._

_At least three were somewhere in this alley. Dicey odds, but dicey manageable was better than not manageable._

_A fine mist started settling down on the ground, larger splats of rain peppering through in preparation for what was coming as Buffy paused in the middle of the alley. She did another look-see before crouching down to pretend to tie her shoe._

_Distractions weren’t necessary though as a door in the alley slammed open, a shot of light from inside beaming out and a large body was thrown free, the heavy bulk landing right before her. With wide eyes, Buffy jumped back, scrambling over the ground as the body made a few noises of pain._

_And like a dinner whistle, out came the three she had felt before. And now her stomach was doing the Slayer Waltz through her muscles._

_“Hey,” one of them said, staring at her. “Dessert.”_

_“Keep it clean, boys,” a female voice sliced through with an Italian accent said from the doorway and Buffy turned to see who the fourth addition was only to have black eyes meet her stare. Buffy started at the sight as the woman continued nonchalantly, closing the door behind her, “We do not want any more visitors.”_

_“Right, boss.”_

_Buffy filed away the strange black-eyed widow woman for another time, wondering where the line was drawn in this relationship with who were the lambs and who was the lion._

_“Boss, huh?” Buffy piped in, reaching back to her bag and pulling out a stake. “I like new world order. Gives me the feminine fuzzies to see you fellas taking orders from a woman. Alright, a demon woman, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.”_

_“Oooh, she’s snarky,” the one closest to her said as the lump of a human on the ground moaned in pain. The one that liked her inched closer. “And she’s got a piece of wood. How cute.”_

_“It’s gonna get real cute here in a second,” Buffy said with a smile before stepping in and shoving her fist into the vamp’s throat. He choked out in pain, his hands flying to cover the site of his injury as Buffy moved to his side, kicking out the side of his knee. He yelped, collapsing. “Pain is the new cute, haven’t you heard?”_

_Man, it was like she had never stopped..._

_The larger of the two left standing reached down and grabbed the lapels of the poor sap who was about to be dinner as Buffy advanced on them. “Kill her. Make it quick. We’ve got answers we need from this one.”_

_The moment the big vamp got the man standing, his feet unsteady on the ground, his weight leaning into the vampire’s bulk as the third vampire turned to Buffy... everything did a wild back flip. The guy’s feet gained traction, his arms coming up to knock the lax hold the vamp had on him before he grabbed the vamp’s shoulders and slammed his head into his._

_Holy mother of crap, it was her mystery guy. Seriously, Fates, what were the freaking odds?_

_It was like a dance of the morbid. James Dean over there concentrated on his Hulk vampire while Buffy handled her two. She took a few uncomfortable shots - one felt like her teeth were about to come rocketing out of her gums and the other she was sure she had broken a toe - before hers were dust on the wind._

_She turned in time to see him knocking his vampire into the land of demon dreams, the vampire’s head slapping the ground soundly as he laid out cold. James Dean yanked out some vicious looking twine from inside his jacket and tied it quickly around the vampire’s wrists behind his back. Buffy stopped, raising an eyebrow._

_“Looking for a cuddle buddy?” she asked, taking a tentative step forward. Her stake was still firmly in hand as she approached, feeling an odd thrill in her chest when the guy looked back with what she was starting to think was his signature grin. She wasn’t sure, though, if the stake was for him or the vampire. He did appear to be a harbinger of the bad stuff happening…_

_And they hadn't exactly left on good terms the last time she ran into him._

_She didn't entertain the thoughts in the back of her mind that she was in no way bothered by running into him again. All the agitation and frustration and fear from last time was gone and in its place was curiosity of her own as well as an odd form of gratitude that it was him playing bait and not some random Joe._

_“I guess you could say that,” the guy grunted as he finished the knot. He let the vampire fall back to the ground on its full weight, a loud smack filling the air. The mist hadn’t stopped and the guy stood, running his hand through his hair as he stared at her stake. “Change of heart, I see.”_

_Buffy tightened her grip on the stake, ignoring the comment. “Never did catch your name, big guy.”_

_“That’s ‘cause I didn’t throw it at you,” he replied, digging into another inner pocket. Producing a phone, he quickly typed something before sending the text. “Not like you’re being so forthcoming your little self.”_

_“Do you blame me?”_

_He shrugged. “Guess not.” Shoving the phone back in his pocket, he cocked his head, studying her. “So what happened?”_

_“What?” He nodded to her stake and she shook her hand, letting it fall to her side. “Precaution.”_

_“Right.”_

_She could already hear him wanting to say it: 'Because you always wander into dark alleys with an arsenal as precaution.' He didn't say it though._

_An estranged silence gathered speed between them. The awkwardness from their last meetings lingered still and that unnaturally familiar guilt started building its nest in her stomach again as she remembered her words from last time and how it must look as she stood in the alley, doing exactly what she had gotten angry at him for suggesting._

_Although he had ambushed her, but still…_

_What could she say? 'Hey, sorry I ditched out on your demon fun last time, I'm in the midst of an identity crisis… for possibly the fourth time.'_

_Shifting her body, Buffy contemplated whether this was time to get home before the rain and the weird questions hit or... stay and ask questions herself. Which is what she actually wanted to do._

_“Got big plans with him?” she asked, pointing to the unconscious vampire. Questions were safer. Questions led to answers which led to conversations not surrounding her surprise visit in the world of slaying. Or a whole bucket load of I-told-you-so's._

_The guy nodded, looking a little pleased with himself for the catch. “Rumors of a pretty large nest somewhere around here. They’re doing a new recruit game," he said, pointing to the door with a pained expression, "So I thought I would try and find out where they’re all headed. Can say one thing about bloodsuckers, they know how to hide when they don't want to be found.”_

_“And you were in there by yourself?” Buffy asked incredulously. “Who was that woman?”_

_“Demon.” He frowned, turning back to glare at the door. “Looks to be a demon reunion here soon which makes it a little more twisted with vamps in the freaky mix. Fuckers are getting dodgier and dodgier with no home base… not that they liked the home base. Guess it's not exactly fun anymore having nowhere to escape from afterwards.”_

_If his words were supposed to make sense, they didn’t and Buffy shook her head, focusing on the more relevant part. “So you were... what, bait? You were the bait and you were the cavalry?”_

_The guy smiled. “One-man show. Not like I had any other options.”_

_“What about that ‘friend’ you were visiting last time, he couldn’t have at least told you that you were a moron for trying this stellar plan?”_

_“We’re not that good of friends. He knows someone I know and so I help out from time to time.” He looked around. “And not why I’m here this time, but thanks for the concern, sweetheart.”_

_Buffy opened her mouth to retort, to tell him that he was stupid for not taking backup, that he was going to get killed, that he was going up against something huge and dark and that he was clearly only human and... and... what? She could help? After her response the last time she had seen him, he probably wouldn't even be open to the idea. And here she was, walking around like a giant hypocritical slaying thing. Buffy swallowed, wondering where this flood of concern for this random guy was coming from. She couldn't explain it, but she felt something like a kinship with him. Something... comfortable, something that went well with the whole new liberation gig._

_Maybe it was that he knew what she was. Maybe it was that he was the one that had metaphorically kicked her in the head and made her open her eyes again._

_“Well, you know...” He just stared at her. “I could help. Next time. If there is a next time.”_

_The guy didn’t move; he just stood there, studying her. “Huh,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Real change of heart. What, did somebody die?”_

_“Yeah, I almost did,” Buffy quickly snapped, crossing her arms in embarrassment. Like he didn’t already know that. “You know, you could be cool and just say ‘thanks, I’ll do that next time’ instead of being a jerk.”_

_He opened his mouth to say something before he stopped. He held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I’m not trying to get your panties all twisted.” Buffy glared at him. “But I might take you up on that. Thanks.”_

_“Good.” Buffy nodded. “Because... I’ll be here. To help.”_

_“Good." A pregnant second passed before he chuckled. "Nice to see I still have some sway over a female’s intentions.” Buffy raised an eyebrow. “Name’s Dean. Winchester.”_

_“Buffy,” she replied slowly. “Is my name. Buffy Summers.” She watched him narrow his eyes for a split second before looking away. "What?" She chuckled uneasily. "You actually have heard of me after all my crazy accusations?"_

_Dean just smiled, shaking his head. "The world is a crazy place," he said, leaning down. "How about you use those freakish muscles of yours to help me lift this guy into my trunk?"_

_Buffy frowned at his leading words again but didn't comment. Why bring up more unnecessarily uncomfortable conversation? She was sure it was that she was back in the slaying game that she wasn’t freaked about him having heard of her. It wasn’t exactly unusual, although she had thought the years would put her back into anonymity. Either way, she was okay not pressing it. Things were good and calm and not icky with this guy who seemed to be everywhere and she found she didn’t want to push him away._

_"Where's your trunk?"_

_"On the street."_

_"Oh great, by people. Lots and lots of people."_

_"Well, if you act like you're doing something wrong, of course you'll look like you're doing something wrong," Dean grunted in response to her concern, digging his fingers into the vampire's armpits. "Legs."_

_Buffy grabbed the vamp's ankles, lifting his bulk easily. "Your logic is dumb."_

_"Just lift."_

*

What became rapidly evident after that hunt was the empty air inside those free cherries was chocolate chip Buffy's life.

Over the next several months, I ran into Dean a few more times.


	7. Chapter Seven - December 2014

**Chapter Seven - December 2014 (four months later)**

_one world, it’s a battleground_   
_one world, and we will smash it down_   
_one world… one world…_

_Buffy felt the hands on her body. She felt the clawed fingers curling up in her clothes for grip before gravity abandoned her and she was floating, her shirt tightening against her skin painfully._

_And then she was flying._

_“No!”_

_She heard Dean let out a bark of pain as she collided with his body, both of them falling in a tangle of limbs into a pile of garbage. Something wet landed on her cheek, her knee slammed uncomfortably into the ground and she felt her fingers doing the tango with what felt like an old banana peel._

_Scrambling to find her feet, Buffy let out a sound of disgust, swiping at her face. She felt Dean using her as leverage to find his feet as well and she turned in his arms just in time to see the vampire duo running straight at them._

_“Lift me up, lift me up, lift me up,” Buffy said urgently, turning her back to him and bending her knees. She waved at him over her shoulder, her eyes on the prey. She heard Dean ask her what she was doing before he too saw the vamps and then his hands were on her waist. Almost like they had spent time choreographing this puppy a la Dirty Dancing, Buffy braced her hands over his for balance as he lifted her up. She shoved a foot into each vamp’s face, a cascade of cartilage crunching and they both flew back, one hitting a hanging metal ladder and the other slamming a dent in a door._

_“Nice,” Dean breathed behind her after her feet found the ground again and Buffy shot him a grin over her shoulder before leaping in for the kill._

*

He didn't call in any favors and I didn’t spend my time hunting looking for him.

I actually ended up spending more time walking around with him than doing any actual hunting the few times I did see him.

Like we were… friends. Like our first meeting hadn’t actually been so acid-filled. Like weeks of time didn’t pass between us suddenly running into each other. Like the actual act of running into each other so often and so many times in such a large city wasn’t weird.

It was nice, having someone to share those dark spaces with again… Something just clicked.

*

**February 2015 (two months later)**

_“He did what?”_

_“He put it in his mouth.”_

_“No, ew. No. Isn’t that like... ghost vomit? Ew,” Buffy said, shaking her head with a laugh._

_“Yeah.” Dean chuckled. “Yeah, Garth’s a pretty interesting guy.”_

_The gentle smile on his face didn’t escape her. “So what has he done for you to owe him so much that you keep coming back here?”_

_“Those are stories for another time.”_

_Buffy rolled with the rejection easily. “I would say those are stories for really boring nights when this ‘warlock’ guy - this friend of a friend - is clearly just sitting around in his apartment, eating mushrooms and not in any actual danger.”_

_Dean grunted in agreement. He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to boast about anything. Ever. In fact, he talked so little about anything Dean-related, it was like he was a ghost. Like he had no back story, no funny tales, no silly anecdotes. It was just the random people he knew, the people who gave him a smile... everything else he kept so close to the chest, it was armor._

_Buffy looked around. Even the streets were dead, not a dead thing in sight. Rather, not a dead thing in sight that was a demon-infested fiend. Even the humans were staying off the streets. B-o-ring._

_“Alright, you won’t tell me anything hunter-related which... okay. How about something easier. Do you have any siblings?”_

_Dean suddenly did the best impersonation of a brick wall ever as he stiffened next to her, his gait changing. He adjusted his shoulders in his jacket before shoving his hands into his pockets as that brick wall grew a few layers of steel. Buffy watched him, watched him scowl like he was staring into the bowels of a hellhound before relaxing his face before scowling again. A show of ‘to tell or not to tell’ maybe…_

_“Uh... yeah. A brother.”_

_Buffy nodded, keeping her voice light. “Where is he now?”_

_“Not here.”_

_The stony ice in his tone was enough to stab through anything dead. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”_

_She heard him taking a deep breath. “No, you’re fine. I just don’t like... talking. About... well, anything.” He chuckled humorlessly. Buffy stared at him for a moment where he watched the sidewalk as they moved along. His face was tight and closed off, the brick wall impersonation going nowhere and she simply nodded, piercing her lips and crossing her arms over her chest. To make sure her fingers had something to do, she reached under her arms to check her backpack was still there. He let out another breath. “How about you? You got any blood ball and chain rolling around somewhere?”_

_Buffy glanced back over again and saw him turn to meet her eye. He looked honestly curious and she smiled. Hey, not like she was ever one for the big spillin’ o’ the beans. She had gotten used to the gruff-now-chill-later kind of guy Dean was turning out to be. Although that didn't stop her from wanting to know more - he had clearly been through a meat grinder, sure, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t ground beef just sitting around somewhere, waiting to be discovered._

_“Yeah. A little sister. She’s in Europe right now... and she's also dating one of my best friends.”_

_“Huh.”_

_“That is an understated response. Definite understatement.”_

_“Guy or girl?" Dean asked with a hint of amusement and Buffy rolled her eyes._

_"Guy. I don't think Dawn's on the girl tour bus… unless she is and it's Willow she's dating…" Buffy’s eyes widened as her mind swept through the prospects before shaking her head, throwing her hands up. "Ah, either way! It’s weird!"_

_"So… he's your age?" Buffy nodded. "And that freaks you out.”_

_“Of course it freaks me out, it’s...” Buffy waved her hands around. “Not right. Well, it’s right. It feels okay, in a really weird and creepy way, but not in a bad way. Just a way that’s… weird. I mean come on, he was around her when she was still in middle school, an annoying little... freakish ball of energy, running around with ice cream smeared all over her face. Yeah, that’s real attractive.”_

_“How old is she?”_

_“Twenty-five.”_

_Dean snorted. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that ice scream smeared all over a twenty-five year old sounds goddamn delicious.” Buffy smacked his shoulder. “What? Come on. People change as they get older.”_

_“Look at you with all these pearls of wisdom disguised as understatements of the year.”_

_Dean made a face. “Cute.”_

_“Yes. I am actually.” Buffy shot him a quick smile when she saw him turning to look at her. An unwelcome shot of heat scorched through her body when her eyes met his. The tiny voice in the back of Buffy’s mind told her to look away, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to. They looked darker than normal and something unreadable was in his gaze as his eyes darted to her lips for a second before he looked away. Buffy felt an even more unwelcome desire to do something more like lick her lips or bat her eyelids or freaking blush…_

_Whoa, where had that come from?_

_Buffy cleared her throat, looking away. “So much dead out here... How about we use this cuteness as bait for a little demon dramarama party?”_

*

I'm pretty sure you can tell where this is going. It's called Bad Land. Very Bad Land.

But… the bottom line? It was nice to have someone to share the raisins with.

*

**March 2015 (one month later)**

_"So you just drive around the country, checking out stories that may or may not be supernatural-related and if they are, you research what it is, hunt it down and then… start over?"_

_"Well, when you say it like that, it sounds like the definition of insanity."_

_"But no, you're getting different results each time so your expectations are well-placed."_

_Dean glanced at her, shaking his head. They were leaning against a sticky concrete wall that had been painted black. What was sticky on it, she really didn't want to know or even let her mind wander into that realm of ew. Buffy stared at him for a split second longer, his eyes glued to entrance of the club they were watching._

_Rumored to be a demon hangout of the upper crust demons - if there were such a thing - and the reason that Dean was back in town so quickly. Not that she was complaining. Buffy's eyes trailed down his jaw line, noting that he was intensely focused on the door, his face taut, and the way his jacket lapels were jacked up against the occasional breeze coming off the water._

_She always found it fascinating that he looked younger when he was intent like this. It was only when he didn't have something to focus on, something to hunt or kill, that all the years of crap he wore on his face in the form of worry lines and an entire lack of laugh lines that you saw the life he had lived. But right now? He… looked good._

_Buffy cleared her throat, looking away. Wow, hello inappropriate thoughts. Get lost. Go away. Get a life._

_"It's not so bad," he said, interrupting the internal rants and Buffy nodded._

_"It wouldn't be so bad, traveling around to see the country like that." She saw Dean out the corner of her eye turning to look at her and she turned to face him. "I mean, I'm sure you meet a lot of interesting people."_

_The hint of a smile on his lips was enough for her to know he got it. "Yeah."_

_"And hey, meeting new baddies, nothing bad about that. Ridding the world of the evil spawn."_

_"Trying to anyway."_

_"Doing. And you're doing a great job at it," she said, her eyes glued to the side of his face again and he glanced at her before looking away. The ping in her heart when she saw he clearly saw it a different way upset her. He didn't respond. "You know that right? I wouldn't even be here without you."_

_Dean snorted. "Right. The night I was stalking you."_

_"Hey," Buffy said, swatting his arm playfully. "I was kind of freaking out. Do you blame me?"_

_"Yes, I do actually," he said. "Slayers don't typically get hooked on the freak out bus."_

_"Well, I'm special, I guess."_

_"Yeah," he said softly, looking at her again. Buffy's heart fluttered and she wanted to close her fist around it. He looked away before giving her a sidelong glance. "You are."_

_She couldn't stop the smile blossoming on her lips. She looked away quickly before looking back and hitting his arm again. "You're only saying that so I stick around to save your butt."_

_"Hey, my butt is fine without any saving."_

_"Your butt is fine," Buffy said without thinking as she swung to look at the door again before her words registered. She turned back to see his eyebrow raised and an amused smile on his face. "No. Not that I look at your butt. I didn't mean… that I was analyzing it or anything. Those were your words. Not mine."_

_"You like my butt?"_

_Buffy had a newfound appreciation for the gross sticky and entirely black and shadowy wall on which they were leaning because her face felt like a burning tomato. "No. I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad butt, it's definitely a fine… It's just like every other butt walking around and oh my god, why are we talking about this. Subject change. Stat."_

_Dean chuckled, looking up when a very human patron entered the club. Other than that, the street was quiet save for the two crazy people hiding in the shadows, waiting for what Dean called a "demon-filled human meat suit" to come in or leave. His best lead thus far on the chick with the freaky black eyes he seemed to have been tracking for months now. And all she’d gotten by way of explanation was, ‘Demon possession - Christ, what do they even teach you guys?’_

_"Would you?" he asked after a moment._

_Buffy looked at him. "What?"_

_"Leave."_

_"Oh." Buffy paused, caught off guard. She opened her mouth, waiting for the 'No' to come tumbling out but it didn't. "Oh." Would she leave? "I… I don't know. I mean, my life is here. Well, my new life is here and there are… people here. And…" She shrugged. It's not like she hadn't left somewhere before - hello, reason why she was in New York in the first place… "I don't know, I guess." She laughed. "That's a weird thing to say, but I don't know. I mean, I've got people and…" She had people. She had lots of people. She had a life and she had everything she wanted… but there was that little tickle in the back of her mind that told her she wasn't so sure. And that she was okay not being so sure… "If the right circumstances applied, I guess. Wow, that's callous. No. I don't… I don't know. There. Answer. Simple, clean." She sliced the air with her hand. "I don't know."_

_She saw Dean nodding his head slowly from the corner of her eye. "Did it before."_

_"Yeah," Buffy said, staring at the club entrance as her mind circled the issue. But different circumstances then. One of her multiple identity crises and trying to find out who she really way… She was happy here, wasn't she? What was this little smidgen of indecision bouncing around like a cracked out bunny on steroids in the back of her head?_

_"Yeah. I did."_

*

He was a hunter, someone who had been living the life literally since he was a little kid and knew the score. He knew I was a Slayer and which Slayer I was - some from reputation a la that friend of a friend of his that he was visiting in New York and some because of the Slayer boom that had boosted the good guys’ economy. He didn’t get wigged or weird around me like most humans did, even if they knew the game. He just… accepted it and moved on. Like accepting that every day ends in a ‘y’ - no biggie.

It was… nice.

Maybe too nice but that’s always a ghost train until it runs you over. A ghost train made of time that you thought was a buffer but was in reality a big giant false time-thing.


	8. Chapter Eight - May 2015

**Chapter Eight - May 2015 (two months later)**

_catch me, I am falling_   
_and your innocence_   
_is all I have_   
_can you hear me calling_   
_in pieces only I can understand_

_Seven bags of discarded temporary artist sketches. Two arms. The math was looking bad._

_Buffy dug her fingers into the plastic bags, feeling her nails starting to rip new holes in the stupid things as she tried to lean over to see where she was walking. Of course Marinna has to choose the art gallery with the perilous back alley full of potholes. Of course she has to choose the alley with the dumpster that was on the other side of the street. Of course Buffy had agreed to stay late to help out and of course she was the last one left and thus, the only one available to take out the trash._

_Of course._

_Buffy clenched her teeth, heaving the bags up as she picked up a quicker pace. She still had to go back in and shut down the lights and lock up before heading home to get in a quick meet-and-greet at MacLaren’s before doing a not-so-quick sweep of the streets._

_The roar of a bitterly loud car engine echoed from behind her and Buffy didn’t bother to see who it was, not caring. Parking anywhere around here was off limits and the meter maids made the rounds like it was their life’s goal to destroy people with parking tickets. So let them park and let them get ticketed and let them go somewhere else to roar their stupid cars and annoy the people within fifty feet of it._

_“Who the hell drives in New York anyway? Lose a limb just getting into a cab much less-“_

_“Need some help, little lady?” a voice said from behind her and Buffy stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t fight the smile on her face as she looked over her shoulder._

_“Dean.”_

_“Buffy,” he said in a mocking voice as he approached her. Buffy's smile widened at his playful tone - he sounded especially laid back tonight. Buffy felt the plastic slipping through her fingers and she tried to readjust without everything falling apart as she bit her lip to keep from a full-blown grin as something like a butterfly ball slammed in her chest. Jeez, what was she, in middle school?_

_“I take it that annoying monstrosity of a car I just heard is yours?”_

_“Whoa, watch your mouth about my baby,” Dean said. “She’s more woman than you’ll ever be.”_

_“Ooh, stop it with those compliments, you'll make me blush,” Buffy replied, turning to head back to the dumpsters. “And here I thought you never-“_

_Pot. Holes. Pot. Freaking. Holes._

_Buffy couldn’t have stopped herself even if she had wanted to. She was wearing a pair of durable but ridiculously high heels that looked amazing in an art gallery and absolutely crappy on the street where the holes in the pavement were the size of her head. It happened in a split second as Buffy felt her ankle roll into the hole, her heel giving her extra oomph and she let out a sharp yell of pain, instinctively dropping all the garbage bags as she moved to catch herself._

_Dean was closer than she thought because he grabbed her arm before she hit the ground, pulling her back into his arms. She felt him stumbling back from the slap of gravity, his arms securely wrapped around her. Buffy hissed in pain when she moved to stand by herself on instinct - because hey, her ankle had always worked - the sharp radiating pain encompassing her lower leg._

_“Oh, owie, owie,” Buffy whimpered, digging her fingers into Dean’s jacket as he gently set her on the ground, kneeling next to her. The sharp sudden pain was shocking, making her lungs squeeze like they were being milked in a juicer. God, why did twisted ankles hurt so damn bad?_

_“Which one?”_

_Buffy’s whimpers got louder as she pointed to her left foot, letting out a pained keel when Dean touched it. Buffy wanted to reel back and punch him in the back of the head when he palpitated but she settled for squeezing his shoulder so hard, she hoped he was feeling what he was doing to her._

_“You can stop squeezing me like I’m cutting your damn leg off, I think you just sprained it,” Dean said. “Can you move it?”_

_“No,” Buffy said without trying and Dean gave her an annoyed look. Buffy was the Slayer. She had been the Slayer for a hell of a long time and she had had the luxury of feeling more wounds than most - gashes, stabs, broken ribs and even a few shattered hearts. But this... this damn ankle HURT._

_“Try.” Buffy made a face, twisting her ankle as best she could and letting out a little cry. She didn’t miss the amused smirk on Dean’s face as he watched her twist it. “See, that wasn’t so bad.”_

_Buffy glared at him and he smiled at her. “I’ve got better ideas about what’s not so bad.” He rolled his eyes and she waved to the painful ankle. “Something’s... grinding in there.”_

_“It did crack pretty good.”_

_“What? It did? Did I break it?”_

_“Do I look like a freaking doctor?” Dean asked, wrapping his hands around her waist. Buffy wanted to say something neat and quippy and funny and mean all at the same time but everything in her brain erased when she once again moved her foot without thinking. She whimpered, tugging on Dean’s lapels as he got ready to pick her up. “Come on, it’s not that bad.”_

_Buffy wanted to argue because it was that damn bad but she would have said the same thing in his spot. “I know,” she said dejectedly. “I know that, but that stupid ankle doesn’t know that.”_

_“Ready?” he asked and before she could say, ‘I’m okay just laying here on the ground for a while,’ he had her up. And wouldn’t you know it, her other leg felt like a wet spaghetti noodle and she collapsed into his arms._

_“Whoa there,” he said, pulling her against his chest for a place to lean. It took Buffy approximately two seconds to realize she was digging her forehead against his chest and one more second to realize her entire body was flush against his. Buffy swallowed, feeling his chest contract underneath her hands before putting weight on her good leg, her other hanging uselessly._

_When she pulled her head back, her mind ready to go into a whole lecture about good touching vs. bad touching, Dean looked down at the same time. Buffy sucked in a short breath, her eyes suddenly finding his lips as he blinked slowly._

_Time did that weird warp where it seemed to slow down and everything in her body became hyper aware. She felt the heat coming off of his skin through his clothes; the grip of his hands on her waist and hip as he held her - so gentle and easy, so different from the way they moved and felt when they were fighting; the way his breath tickled at her cheek, smelling of something minty and something old beer-ish; the way a rush of heat swarmed through her stomach, branching out like a deranged tree as his hands shifted on her back, his fingers digging in slightly. He licked his lips and Buffy let out a dry breath, wondering what they would feel like..._

_Time warp mind screw._

_Buffy felt her hand moving before she could stop it and her index finger touched his stubbled chin, her eyes darting up to his. She tried to take a deep breath but everything inside her mouth and lungs was dry as the Sahara as she stared into the mossy green of his eyes. He was so close, right there..._

_Her heart was racing through her chest like a marathon horse on crack as he leaned into her touch…_

_And then she needed to breathe and then reality settled in around her like a noxious cloud of reminder as she remembered she was at work. In the middle of the street. In Dean's arms… where she shouldn't be._

*

Because bad.

*

_Buffy pulled out of his arms, looking everywhere but anything Dean-related and she hobbled back as best she could, finding it amazing that her ankle magically didn’t hurt as badly as a mixture of regret, guilt and excitement wept through her veins where that crack horse had been roaring just a second ago._

_Keeping a hand on his arm for balance, Buffy smiled awkwardly, her hand oddly hot where it touched his jacket._

_And she had nothing to say._

_“So, uh…" Dean cleared his throat. "Can you walk?"_

_"What? Yes." Buffy swallowed, biting the tip of her tongue as she tried to stand on the traitor ankle. "Easy-schmeasy, this walking thing." It felt like an army of little people were down there, working together to shove a chisel against her ankle bones. She didn't realize it until her nails started hurting that she was clawing Dean's arm off._

_"I'll take that as a no." He grabbed her elbow, indicating a pile of crates to sit on. Buffy felt that same stupid horse stampeding in her chest at his warm hand and she mentally slapped herself. God, this was Dean! Dean! Boring, emotionally-stunted Dean who cared more about his car than the clothes on his back and spent more time cleaning his guns than sleeping. He was in no way near the suddenly smoldery-eyed guy who had facial hair that had somehow become way too-_

_Emergency brakes, brain, emergency brakes._

_"I'll be fine," Buffy said, her voice strained as she limped to the crates. "See, I can make it."_

_"Yeah, you're a real classy limping broad there."_

_"Shut up."_

_"I can, uh…" Dean helped her sit down, his hand lingering on her arm before he snatched his hand back. "Give you a ride. Back-"_

_"You don't have to, that's really not-"_

_"To your house."_

_"I'm fine, really." Buffy lifted her leg, twisting it just enough for her foot to move a centimeter and for her to not wince. "See. It moved!"_

_Dean gave her a hard look. "Do jumping jacks."_

_"I would… if I wasn't wearing high heels," Buffy said smartly._

_"Yeah, you also wouldn't have almost made out with some concrete if you weren't wearing those things."_

_"Hey, don't blame the shoes. These are great shoes and they look really good on me."_

_"They do look-" Dean stopped and Buffy's eyes widened as she imagined where his words were taking him._

*

Remember Bad Land?

*

_God, this has just gone from manageably awkward to horrifying-giraffe-fight awkward._

_"Well, I'm not gonna just leave you here while you build up enough courage to walk to the street for a cab."_

_“Um...” Darn stupid logic. “Okay. But I still need to do a few more things. Inside.”_

_“Alright. Just, uh…" Dean pointed to the backdoor of the gallery. "Just tell me what to do."_

_"And the, um… trash. Laying there, in the middle of the street."_

_Dean looked affronted for a second. "What the hell am I, your servant?"_

_"What? You offered."_

_"Not for indentured servitude."_

_Buffy rolled her eyes as he went for the trash. "Nice."_

_"You’re damn right I’m nice."_

_It took Dean twenty minutes to follow through with her instructions about what to do inside as he kept coming out, calling her a direction liar._

_Twenty-three minutes later, he was helping her up, his arm wrapped around her waist to help her walk, his warm palm underneath her jacket and flush against her rib cage, right below…_

*

Denial. River. Africa.

That was us. In a nutshell. A really cramped, awkward Bad Land nutshell.

During those first few months of slaying, I got pretty darn good with the balance. This balance involved going into Chocolate Chip Buffy mode before switching back to Oatmeal Raisin Buffy mode. I made it work, like I always had. And like I always had, there were things in both worlds I wanted to keep just the way they were.

At first, it was easy.

Things with Ted started looking up. I stopped being so weird and secretive all the time and I even gave in with Barney and played his sister. I went shopping with Lily and I egged Robin on with her reporter gig. I helped Marshall color in one of his pie charts.

It was like riding a bicycle - I had oatmeal raisin on one hand and chocolate chip in the other. I didn't let myself think about the years of pure chocolate chip or the years of pure oatmeal raisin because I was making good darn due with what I had before me.

I was making it work. It didn't really occur to me that I was playing with fire - that I was leading one man on and entertaining something I couldn't even fathom with another until it was too late. It was literally like I was back in high school again, everything in place such as the "new" slaying gig and the naïve "I can get away with this" thinking.

Hindsight is such a bitch. And you’d think I know that since I had lived through it.

Like I said before, it never just… stays in one spot, that crazy thing called life.

It didn't help that it took me a little too long to realize how very deep the chasm between the two Buffys was becoming the more time passed, the more I did the little jiggle dance with my life during the day and my life at night…

And then, about one week after the last time I saw him, Dean took me up on my offer. He needed help with that large nest of vampires snacking on a small town further north. About ninety-eight miles away outside of the city.

Also known as "we're definitely not in Kansas anymore” because like the smartest person ever, I lost my phone and - click those heels, Toto - the only other way Dean knew how to find me... was at MacLaren’s.


	9. Chapter Nine - July 2015

**Chapter Nine - July 2015 (two months later)**

_and you know it’s getting stronger_   
_it can’t last very much longer_   
_turn to stone…_

_"Hey, Carl, another round, please."_

_"You got it, B."_

_It never failed, she always felt a stab through her chest at Carl's nickname for her. Freakish. Buffy leaned against the bar, staring at the lineup of alcohol along the back wall before glancing over her shoulder. She watched Ted staring blandly at something Barney was saying and she smiled. Almost like a magnet, Ted turned to her and returned the smile._

_Things were getting better between them. Buffy had explained the "outer limits" weeks as saying she just got a little obsessed with exercising. And it was just something she didn't like doing with other people - because of the sweat, of course. And Ted, being the best human being walking the planet, had accepted that and then cracked a joke about what she looked like the night before in bed._

_And then she had bruised his arm._

_Turning back to the bar, Buffy stared at her fingers as Carl set a pitcher of beer in front of her before going to grab two wine glasses for Lily and Robin. Buffy carried it back to the table, leaning over to set it in the center before sliding into her spot next to Ted._

_“My sweet beer queen, tell Carl to fetch me-“_

_“I already told you, no more Barney alcohol on my tab,” Buffy interrupted._

_Barney shook his head in mock disbelief. “Still upset about the hot Asian.”_

_“I will always be upset about the hot Asian,” Buffy replied. She wagged her finger at Barney. “We have been over this dozens and dozens of times.”_

_“False,” Barney replied. “Only fourteen times. Get your story straight.”_

_“Another glass, m’lady?” Ted asked, grabbing the pitcher and Buffy’s glass. Buffy smiled at him._

_“Please.”_

_“One day I will teach you the super secret trick to no foam,” Ted said as he poured._

_“Tilt the glass?”_

_“If only it were so simple. There is a lot of wrist action here. Observe the wrist action.” Buffy laughed as Ted twisted his wrist for show, the beer sloshing in her glass. Without a prompt, Buffy glanced at the bar._

_Dean turned just in time to catch her eye, his lips forming words that she couldn’t hear as he spoke to Carl behind him. He was lifting his glass of beer for a drink when he stopped in mid-lift. His face shifted when he caught her eye, darkening and she felt a stab of ‘holy mother of god’ stab through her stomach. Then he shot her a short nod and she felt her heart stop completely. Which was never good because it meant the oxygen her body badly needed had no way to get in there._

_Buffy sucked in a quick breath and quickly averted her eyes, turning as Ted continued talking but she had no idea what he was saying. She knew there were words coming out of his mouth, that he was talking at her about something and that thing and another thing but past that? She glanced back at where Dean had sat down at the bar._

_Okay, clearly not leaving._

_And he looked up right as she looked at him. He raised an eyebrow at her._

_Damn it. Wiping her lips with her hand, Buffy noticed Carl had yet to bring the wine over._

_“Wine,” she blurted. Lily and Robin glanced at her from across the table. “I’ll check. On the wine.” And then she was up and off._

_She knew she had no reason to be freaked that he was in here. So he was in here, so what? He’d been here before. He knew Carl. He... liked beer. Beer was good. And foamy. Everyone liked foamy things._

_Draping her arms over the bar, Buffy pressed her sternum into the wood as hard as she could as she glanced at Dean out the corner of her eye. She wouldn’t have had to look at all as the familiar mixture of Dean surrounded her. Leather, gun powder and some sort of spicy musky cologne that he would never admit to wearing._

_“What are you doing here?” she asked._

_She watched him frown before glancing back at the table. He turned to face the bar in his stool, taking a drink from his beer. Buffy didn’t notice Carl going back and forth on the other side, juggling a few glasses before he disappeared with two wine glasses._

_“Hello, earth to Dean.”_

_“I’m here to see you.” He shot her a look. “Obviously.”_

_Buffy hated the stupid back flip she felt in her chest and she bit her tongue. “What happened? Are you okay?”_

_“What, I can’t just see a friend?” he asked, his voice too sweet and she almost flicked him in the eye. Fighting the urge to glance over her shoulder to see what the group was doing, she clenched her hands into a doubled fist._

_“Dean-“_

_“Relax. I’m not here to bust up your party over there.” He took another draw from his glass and Buffy frowned at the side of his head, not liking his tone._

_"Then what are you doing here?" Buffy asked, filing this away for ‘crap we need to talk about’ when she saw him again. Preferably away from here and preferably outside where at least the cool air was her friend. It felt a little too toasty in MacLaren’s all of a sudden. Buffy glanced over her shoulder at her table and saw Ted and Marshall illustrating something with their hands for Robin and Lily providing guidance around them. She put her attention back on Dean. "You can't be here."_

_Dean raised an eyebrow. "Ooh, hostile tonight, huh? Fight with the boyfriend or are you just happy to see me?"_

_Buffy snorted, feeling a little too much of that hostility coming out before she could stop it. "Please. Don't flatter yourself."_

_"I don't know, usually I get a smile and a 'Hey, Dean, I missed you!' Not a snarl."_

_"Well, you shouldn't be here," Buffy hissed, her hand gripping the edge of the bar so hard, she was suddenly afraid it was going to shatter in her hands. She relinquished it. "You can't just walk in and-"_

_"Hey, free country. Just because you dip into your Bruce Wayne life here doesn’t mean I can’t come and enjoy a drink. Plus, it’s free.” Dean winked at Buffy, the complete opposite of his own set of hostility-fueled words as Buffy started getting pissed. “Perks of knowing the bartender.”_

_“Dean-“_

_“I know what you’re gonna say,” Dean continued, ignoring her interruption. He took another drink. “I’m not here to burst the bubble, Summers, so chill. You weren’t answering your phone.”_

_Buffy paused, her mind playing catch up with where he was taking this. “I lost it.”_

_“I assumed when a man named Ranchero answered.” Buffy moved to ask him questions but he didn’t stop. “And so here we are. Not like you gave me a lot of options to contact you when you offered to help out with big demon drama… rama. Or whatever.” Buffy's mouth snapped shut. "Don't exactly have the time to wander around waiting for you to pop out of the shadows like usual. And it’s too late for you to be at work, so...”_

_"What's going on?" Buffy asked, her tone all business, the bar melting away. Like a switch flipping, gone was the ridiculously ill-placed worry that somehow Dean was going to walk over to the table and explain to her friends the very fantastic things she could do with a knife. She knew, rationally, that he would never do that._

_Which made understanding the irrational part of her brain really, really hard._

_"Found that nest," Dean said with a satisfied smile. "And it's a lot bigger than I thought."_

_"What’s ‘a lot bigger’?"_

_Dean raised his eyebrows. "Too big for just me to handle."_

_Buffy nodded slowly. Her eyes trailed down to his dark green t-shirt as her mind moved quickly, the decision already made. "When?"_

_"Now. Yesterday. Three days ago... Three weeks ago."_

_Buffy's head didn't stop nodding, her eyes glued to the lapel of his leather jacket when she felt a third presence in the conversation, felt Ted’s hand on her lower back and smelled his cologne. Her heart seized all over again as she whipped around, throwing a smile on her face._

_“Hey, I’ve seen you in here before,” he said, glancing at Buffy before looking at Dean again. “You work with Buffy, right?”_

_Buffy turned wide eyes to see what Dean’s reaction was going to be, her mouth already opening to supplement Ted when Dean went right in for the plunge._

_“Yeah, I’m an art dealer-“_

_“Artist,” Buffy quickly corrected._

_“Artist, yep,” Dean said with a cooky smile. “I, uh... deal art too. On the side.” Buffy watched in horrified silence as he made an awkward ‘caught me lying’ face before shaking his head. “Dean.”_

_“Ted,” Ted replied slowly, an unsure smile on his face. Nobody said anything as Dean glanced at Buffy before looking around. Buffy shoved her arm around Ted’s waist, the smile on her face feeling painful. Ted finally broken the silence. “Why don’t you join us? You know someone once said the more the merrier. Or something like that.”_

_Buffy wanted to squeeze Ted’s waist until he popped. And then she wanted to squeeze Dean’s head until it popped when he nodded. He freaking nodded his head and smiled and went right along with everything like she hadn’t just freaked out on him for being in the same bar. Now he was going to be in the same booth?_

_“Yeah. Sure. That sounds great,” Dean said, never looking at Buffy. Probably because he knew the minute he did, her eyes would burn a hole into his cranium._

*

You know those moments when you really, really wish the earth would open up and just swallow you whole? This was one of those moments as I watched the carefully built lines that represented the boundaries between oatmeal raisin Buffy and chocolate chip Buffy burn right before my eyes.

*

_“Oh... hey.” Buffy heard Robin saying when she got an eyeful of Dean - heard the way her voice dropped an octave to saccharine sweet - as Ted led the way towards the booth. Buffy grabbed the pitcher of beer, fighting the urge to throw it up in the air where it would nicely land right on Dean as she remembered Robin noticing Dean before. Like, really noticing him and suddenly everything felt more vivid and hot._

_Maybe toss a little bit of that beer onto Robin too._

*

Burning. Lines burning.

*

_Marshall grabbed a chair from a nearby table as the introductions went around the booth. And what fun - it was Lily, Robin and Dean on one side and Barney, Ted and Buffy on the other. Like a vomit-filled piñata about to burst._

_Or maybe that was just Buffy’s stomach._

_“So you’re an artist?” Lily asked, leaning forward to see Dean. It didn’t escape Buffy’s attention how close Robin was insinuating herself against Dean and how little he seemed to mind as he wrapped an arm across the top of their side of the booth. Not that it bothered her. No. Nope. Not bothered by that. Dean was extremely attractive in his own rugged way, who was she to say anything about Dean and Robin... being Dean and Robin._

_Buffy bit her lip. No. The real thing that bothered her was clearly the fact that somehow this guy, this guy who had once upon a time been a totally random guy, who had somehow become her unofficial hunting partner and somehow someone she actually... liked - as a friend - was now totally insinuating himself into her life. In one huge swoop._

_How easy it would be to kick him under the table._

_“Yeah. Big artist here. But nothing, you know, fancy.”_

_Buffy rolled her eyes, grabbing her glass of beer and taking a healthy drink._

_“Me too!” Lily exclaimed before shrugging. “Well, I’m not ‘artiste-famous’ or anything but I did sell a few pieces.”_

_“That’s awesome,” Dean said, a fake grin on his face as he turned to look at Buffy, who shot him the most dagger-filled glare she could muster. He smiled glibly, looking more than prepared to take her on. “You know, I’ve got a few connections through my art dealing process. If you have anymore, I’d love to look at them.” Buffy could not believe what she was hearing. “You never know, you might be sitting on a pot of gold.”_

_Lily made a face - a mixture between pure glee and unrestrained ‘who me?’ all over her features. “Really? That would be great!”_

_“That would be great!” Marshall kicked in. “Imagine an actual art gallery on top of the vet’s office, baby.”_

_Dean looked confused as his face showed him going through his last words to see if he had missed something. Buffy rolled her eyes, having been down this road herself, although her eye roll was more prompted by Dean’s very presence than anything else._

_“Wait,” Dean said. “The vet’s office?”_

_“Yeah. My art calmed the dogs there.” Buffy watched Marshall grin at Lily, rubbing her back with unrestrained pride._

_Dean nodded slowly. “Huh.”_

_The conversation went on from there. It started out with Lily’s art and somehow segued into a Robin story about a fluff news piece involving a bouncy ball and a bear before delving into a story of who had the better conquest with Barney._

_Buffy’s skin was crawling the entire freaking time. She felt something precarious and awful on the verge of exploding right before her eyes. She watched Dean shooting Robin some of what she was ready to call ‘let me eat your panties’ looks and Robin was just eating it up. She watched Ted helping Barney talk about someone named Michelle before Marshall took over with a story from his, Lily and Ted’s days in college together about another Michelle._

_And Dean just went along with it. Kept going along with it. The seams inside her chest were ready to burst open and spew knotted-up and tangled intestines all over the place. It was like she was watching a doppelganger of Dean - this weird version of Dean who talked, laughed, flirted, joked… acted just… wrong. Not her Dean, in her bar and in her booth._

_As the minutes passed and another round of drinks came, Buffy felt like it was getting hotter. She wondered if she looked as flushed as she felt as she tried to keep up with the conversation, as she tried to convince herself that Dean wasn’t doing this on purpose - because he freaking knew how she felt, even if she hadn’t outright said it - and that she was actually okay with the world being... wrong. Something shifted behind her and she realized it was Ted’s arm. She hadn’t even noticed it._

_"Please!" Barney exclaimed, waving his hand dismissively at Dean. "I don't have enough fingers on my hands to count the times I've worn a female's silky underpants. Weak! Pfft."_

_Dean shrugged noncommittally, a small smile on his face when he glanced at Buffy and frowned. She was glaring at him as hard as she could. "Hey, next round's on me, huh?" He grabbed the empty pitcher and got up, brushing past a group of women. Buffy didn’t miss the glances they shot him and she wanted to stab herself in the eye with a shard of her beer glass as she simultaneously thought about telling those girls all the incredibly obvious emotional issues he had that he was suddenly doing an amazing job of hiding. Buffy watched him for a split second before bounding up from the table._

_"I'll help you."_

_Sidling up next to him at the bar, Buffy stared at the wall of alcohol again as she wanted to say, "I can't believe you're sitting there, yucking it up with my friends and being a complete idiot!”_

_Instead she said, "When are you leaving?"_

_"What? The bar? Good company over there, Summers." This time when Buffy looked at him, her glare was three seconds from doing physical damage. He held his hands up. "I was just being polite.”_

_"You could have said no. You could have said I have another place to be. You could have said I don't know this chick all that well and I don't really like her so no," Buffy said, her voice getting edgier with her words. Dean just stared at her as she continued. “You could have just said... no.”_

_"So you really like all this playing the Clark Kent to your Superman?” Dean asked, cocking his head, seeing right through her words of acid. His voice was hard. “Pretending like the other world doesn’t exist just because you say so?” He returned her glare tenfold. “I can tell you right now that shit doesn't work."_

_"Oh yeah, because you've had so many awesome relationships to base anything on. And where’s your little brother, by the way?" Buffy snapped, shaking her head in aggravation at his ability to cut to the quick before her own words registered. Foot meet mouth - and what a hypocrite you are, foot, since you really don’t know jack enough about this guy to shove that down his throat. She turned in time to see Dean turning away. "Dean, I didn't mean that."_

_“Yeah. Well...” Dean shook his head. He pulled out his wallet, snagging a few bills before dropping them in the empty pitcher. He pushed it to Buffy. “For the next round.”_

_“Dean, come on-“_

_“No, you know what? Yeah, my life is shit, but at least I can go to sleep at night knowing I’m not pretending otherwise.” Buffy winced, crossing her arms. “Too bad you can’t say the same. It’s taken me a damn long time, but I finally know who I am and I know what I want. Which thankfully involves none of this bullshit,” he continued, waving his hand towards their booth. “All the dancing around the truth crap. And I’m okay with that, unlike you. I’m not sticking around with people who don’t really know anything about me and what I do and hey, newsflash, that’s the pathetic reason you like sticking around with them at all. Yeah, your life’s awesome.”_

_“That’s not what I’m doing,” Buffy bit out. “You think I asked for all this? You think I wanted to get back into that life?”_

_“Yeah,” Dean said without a pause. “You did. That’s why you started hunting again and that’s why...” He paused before shaking his head. “Are you really this goddamn blind? When everyone else laughs, you smile. When everyone else tells stories, you zone out. This life isn’t you.”_

_“How dare you even try to think you know me,” Buffy hissed, grabbing his jacket to hold on to him as he started to step away. She glued herself to his body to keep him still, keeping her back to their booth. “Who are you, some pathetic lonely guy, driving around with no one and nothing? Yeah, you are such a great role model.”_

_“Right, this lonely pathetic guy you’ve been going out of your stupid way to find. Who’s the fucking pathetic one now?”_

_“Get out of my face,” Buffy bit out, digging her nails into his arm before letting go with a little shove. “You don’t know anything.”_

_Dean chuckled, glancing back at the booth over his shoulder before giving her a knowing look. “Yeah. Sure.” Grabbing the pitcher again, he set it in her hands. “Good luck with all that. Maybe I’ll be around when your shit hits the fan for a fun game of I-told-you-so.”_

_And then he turned away, pushing his way out of the bar. Buffy didn’t think twice, leaving the pitcher on the bar and going out after him._

_“Dean,” she said, pounding up the stairs as he walked down the street. “Dean!”_

_Glancing over his shoulder, Dean didn’t stop. “You better not have left that money just sitting out - I earned that the hard way.”_

_“What, pole-dancing?” Buffy snapped as she grabbed his elbow, stopping him. “I still want to help. With the nest.” Buffy didn’t need to be looking at his face to see what he was thinking but she ignored the ‘the shit hath hitteth the faneth’ looks._

_“Man, Summers, you are one broken puppy.”_

_Buffy felt a white hot anger surge in her chest but she ignored his words. “When are you leaving?” she bit out._

_Dean just stared at her, making Buffy’s skin feel like it was on fire._

_“Tonight.”_

_“Tonight?”_

_“Did I stutter?” Buffy narrowed her eyes. Her mind flashed to the Central Park thing Ted had wanted to check out and the art showing she had gotten tickets for from Marinna... “Hey,” Dean interrupted, holding his hands up. “Don’t go out on any limbs here. You’ve got date night planned, by all means-“_

_That was all it took._

_“I’ll be there.”_

_When Buffy got back to MacLaren’s a few minutes later - after taking a second to walk around the block instead of putting her fists through a wall - she met Ted at the bar._

_“Hey, Dean just ditched out,” he said. Carl was filling the pitcher and Buffy wondered what had happened to Dean’s money. She turned back to see Ted staring at her before he averted his eyes. “He’s kind of a weird dude. I mean, he’s cool and all but... He’s definitely channeling that tortured-artist-sleep-with-me thing, huh? Which, according to Barney, never works, although Robin had a few points in the positive…”_

_Buffy smiled briefly. She placed her hand on his arm. “Something’s come up.”_

*

I know what you’re thinking - I really was a broken puppy... or whatever he said.

And the second thing you’re thinking was red alert, red flag, red badness coming on like a gigantic red iceberg.

I was about as obvious as the giant red sign on my forehead saying, “Something’s wrong, ask me how!”

Remember when I said I was stubborn? That could also go in the bullheaded category but don’t tell anyone I admitted that.

I’ve always heard those rumors from grownups that you learn from your mistakes and you apply them to your future... I wasn’t one of those people.

Obviously.

*

_“Something’s come up. Marinna asked me a few days ago to go check out some new space outside of town. I kept forgetting to mention it to you, I guess, but she just called me and asked if I could go this weekend.” It sounded pretty darn believable, right? Except for the part where she didn’t have a phone but hey, semantics. “Are you mad?” Did Ted ever get mad? He did seem much more even-keeled than he normally was..._

_An hour later, Buffy clenched a lightweight backpack in her hands, swinging it back and forth between her fingers as she waited in the dark. A few stragglers happened by followed by a group of twenty-somethings stumbling around, on their happy way in a pub crawl. She heard one of them say something lewd behind her back as they passed and Buffy whipped her head around to glare and tell him off when she heard the familiar purr of the car._

_That precious, gas-guzzling car that sounded like a rhinoceros trying to breathe._

_“Didn’t think you’d show,” he said through the open window. He looked more than amused as he turned down his radio. He looked freaking smug._

_“I said I would,” Buffy said with agitation. The door creaked when she opened it and groaned louder when she slammed it shut. “It was just three hours ago.”_

_"Lots can happen.” His words were loaded._

_Buffy crossed her arms. “Can we just go?”_


	10. Chapter Ten - July 2015

**Chapter Ten - July 2015**

_dogs of war and men of hate_   
_with no cause, we don’t discriminate_   
_discovery is to be disowned_   
_our currency is flesh and bone_

And so we went. Got to the factory at daybreak, found a motel a bit after that and we went our separate ways room-wise to get some rest. I spent most of the time in my room, staring at the walls and seething about how the night before had gone. All in the name of getting some good “Slayer fire” for the upcoming fight but really, I was just mad.

Who did he think he was saying all that crap? Like he knew me? Like he was one to talk? Like this random dude I happened to talk to every couple of months knew me better than the people I lived with?

So I was pretty angry, yeah.

Anyway, the plan was to go back around noon and do a recon run around before attacking. Get a lay of the land before using the daytime to our advantage.

I think you’re beginning to get that the message of this entire story is that things never quite go the way you plan.

Ever, in my case.

Things were going pretty well for about ten minutes - we busted open most of the outer windows and took out at least fifty percent of the sleeping vampires inside in one hit. And then we got inside, the plan to stick to the sunshine-y spots and make sure we didn’t get dragged too far inside because the place was huge... You know, a plan of safety and using our brains…

Like I said... never quite the way you plan it.

*

_Buffy let out a cry of frustration when three vamps converged, working together to slam her up against the giant thick-pane glass. Her head bounced off the glass too easily, rocking around on her neck as a deep ringing sounded in her ears. She groaned, feeling one of the vampire’s use her arm to propel her away from them. Buffy stumbled to the ground, rolling until she hit the opposite end of the large office._

_Blinking harshly to keep unconsciousness at bay, Buffy rolled over and climbed back to her feet, her body moving uncomfortably as she fought for balance before raising her fists. She moved like liquid, her body instinctively covering her wounds and working past them. Time for that later; now was time for the saving of the life and the killing of the vampire._

_But holy moly, she was gonna hurt like hell the next day._

_The fight continued, escalating before calming down before escalating. Buffy’s entire body burned with the exertion of having to keep moving, keep fighting, keep killing... Dropping her stubby stake, Buffy moved to grab one of the extras in the band of her pants... except there was suddenly a stake drought._

_“Crap,” Buffy whispered. Double crap, triple crap. She had used up all her stakes. Dusting too many vampires turned them into those pencils that ran out of lead even though it was right there. And it wasn’t like she made a habit of carrying around a giant stake sharpener._

_Buffy backed up, glancing around for more weapons. She heard the tired grunts of Dean as he fought and she immediately nixed the idea of calling out for more stakes. That’s all she needed to complete the best trip ever - a headless Dean when she yelled at him, distracting him, because she ran out of wood. As if she wasn’t still angry enough with him after all the crap he had spewed on about the night before and then giving her - HER, like she was the one who had been a jerk - the cold shoulder all day. She wouldn’t be able to yell at him if he was headless._

_So no on the getting help front._

_She vaguely remembered the entrance of the factory, the long wooden rails that were rotting outside and she frowned. Great. Outside of the factory a.k.a. across the damn factory. Did the vampires have to use such a gigantic space? Despite all the punching and kicking and bruising and slaying, she had yet to see any real reason they were in this space other than massing large numbers. Which was never good, even if the reason wasn't obvious. Vampires had the tendency to be persnickety which meant they had someone strong leading them if they managed to get this many together and keep the location under such tight wraps._

_So, there were a lot of not-good-things happening here._

_As a circle of six vamps moved towards her, Buffy felt a shiver of nervous energy crackle across her spine. They really couldn’t have signed up for a worse idea. They were severely outnumbered - one Slayer and one reckless human being did not make a right._

_"Come on, sweet girl," an old man hissed at her, his face looking like an elephant’s ass from the wrinkles twisted in his demonic brow. "You smell so delicious."_

_"Yeah, who set up delivery?" a young punk cracked from the other side. Definitely something going on if Grandpa over there wasn't wanting to throw sticks at that stupid kid. He looked like he fell face first into a box of needle pins._

_"Now, now, fellas," Buffy said, her eyes scanning her surroundings. Right, she'd just have to mow her way through. "There's plenty to go around. Or haven't you heard about Slayer blood - a little goes a long way."_

_"A Slayer?" a female said, her eyes darkening. Purpose filled her voice and Buffy felt like slapping herself. Secret identities were just so passé apparently. "You won't get far."_

_"Yeah, well," Buffy said. "I've got this crazy wild urge to keep on breathing."_

_The woman chortled and for a split second, her eyes danced over Buffy's shoulder. Buffy stiffened, her mind jumping to conclusions at what she was looking at just as the soft twang of an arrow splitting through the air behind her reached her ears. Her body was already moving to duck down and thinking about how awesome it would be if the angle got Grandpa in front of her, but she was too late. Too late and too distracted. She managed to shift enough for the arrow to splice through the middle of her back on the left, embedding itself in her insides as it tented through her shirt in the front._

_The pain was like white hot finger of fire racing through her body as she paused. A thick rush of white noise filled her ears as she looked down at the arrow poking through her body where no arrow should be, her face twisted in pain. She thought she heard Dean yelling something. She thought she heard the vampires giggling like mad little jokers in front of her as a series of black spots collected before her eyes._

_Not good. Very bad. Did it hit something vital, like… well, everything felt vital but couldn't some of the stuff in there be hurt and she could live. Blood was already pooling, leaking down her stomach and Buffy thought about when Cordy had gotten skewered. She'd been fine, which meant she’d be fine, right? Not a lot of other 'poke you through the stomach' wounds to think on…_

_Buffy stumbled backward as the pain infiltrated her lower half, her hands flying out to catch on something to lean on as the vampires advanced. She heard the twang of the arrow fired again, followed by another. She felt something hit her shoulder before something else poked at her thigh. It was like her muscles were doing a new twitching dance in response to the pain - would be nice if there was a way to tell them to calm the hell down, now wasn't the time._

_God, everything HURT._

_Crap. Her mind instantly flew to Dean, wondering where he was, if he was okay; she wondered if she should yell for him to run, get to that wonderfully healing sunlight… which sounded so darn good right now, her limbs were feeling kinda chilly._

_Yeah, sunbathing was a great hobby._

_"Buffy, get the hell down!"_

_Dean didn't give her a chance to respond as his body rocketed into her eyes, knocking her to the ground. He landed on top of her, wrenching the arrows in her body which sent a series of fireworks off inside her brain. The pain that had felt like a pleasant numbing coolness just a second ago was now exploding. Buffy cried out, tears welling. Arrows. She was… carrying a lot of arrows. Bad._

*

Thinking coherently is also really hard when you've become a walking pincushion.

*

_"Plan B, plan b, always have a plan b," she heard Dean mumbling next to her as he scrambled to his feet before pausing when he saw whatever was sticking out of her. "Crap."_

_It clearly wasn't as bad as it felt because he got up, his eyes on whatever was happening behind her, grabbing her arm and forcing her to her feet._

_"We gotta move," was all he said, his grip fierce but Buffy's body was made of Jell-O and she stumbled over her feet, her hand on the arrow in her stomach. She felt it pricking her palm from pressing too hard as her brain registered smelling gas, the smell gaining strength as it curdled in her nose. Oh man, that wasn't good - wasn't there something about smelling something when you were hit with something that had to do with dying… "Buffy!"_

_Buffy looked up, feeling like her head was living in a city of fog, as Dean bent over and she saw the arrow in his shoulder, one that had been meant for her… A tear slid down her cheek as everything around her came back in full 3D, surround sound force and something hot licked at her back. She wanted to turn and see what it was but Dean was crouched in front of her, his hand on her cheek, forcing her to look at him._

_"Get your ass up right now, Summers, and move it!" he snapped, his voice more gravely than normal. Buffy felt his thumb slip on her cheek as he brushed away blood. "Get up!"_

_Buffy nodded slowly, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath. But instead of the clean dusty factory air she had been inhaling a moment ago, she sucked in a lungful of smoke just as a vampire whose clothes were on fire barreled past them, slamming into Dean._

_Buffy screamed his name, her body moving on instinct to push the vampire off as they landed in a fire-y heap. The arrows were no longer there in Buffy's mind as a lick of fire hit her hand. Looking around quickly, Buffy grabbed the first thing she saw, a heavy piece sheet metal that was already getting hot from the flames building up behind her._

_Right. Plan B indeed. Would have been nice to know burning everything down was Plan B._

_The edge of the metal cut into her hand as she used it to shove the vampire off of Dean. He had a patch of fire on his jeans that he quickly patted out while the vampire rolled away, an inhuman scream on its lips before it burst into a pile of dust. But Buffy wasn't staring at that - all she saw was the blossoming wound in the center of Dean's stomach._

_Dean was already moving, scrambling to his feet and kicking the metal out of Buffy's hands. He grabbed her hand, their fingers slipping from the bloody wound on her palm, the dirt on his stinging the open gash. They made it about three feet before Buffy reached back and ripped the arrow from the back of her thigh._

_Seriously going to hurt like hell tomorrow._

_Buffy watched in horror as they scuttled through the debris of the factory, the stray vampires and falling embers as the fire licked up the walls quickly, the dry land and abandoned factory the perfect kindle. Jeez, what the hell had Dean used?_

_Buffy's free hand was on the arrow in her stomach, the arrow in her shoulder tearing at her muscles as she limped after Dean as fast as she could. The bright light of the sun streaming through the open windows was so welcoming Buffy almost started weeping just as a loud crack echoed in the building followed by a thundering groan before a beam of sunlight incinerated a vampire heading for them._

_The roof was collapsing._

*

I guess I could have also prefaced this part with Murphy's Law hates me the most.

*

_The loss of blood was starting to slow Buffy's movements as Dean shouted something at her. She couldn’t hear what it was as another screech echoed in the building, quickly swallowed by the roar of the fire eating everything in its path. The heat was suffocating behind her, catching up so fast she found herself hoping the blood loss was quicker - because getting burned alive?_

_What sort of bucket list would even include that?_

_A blood-stained hand popped out from behind a fallen pillar, the chocolate skin riddled with small pieces of metal in various places from whatever Dean had done to start the fire, the fingers grabbing Buffy's ankle. With a shout, Buffy's finger dug into Dean's hand but the blood was too slick for a grip and she fell._

_"Blood. I can smell your blood," the vampire moaned, his eyes crazed. He hissed with pleasure as he pulled Buffy's injured leg closer, baring his fangs in preparation to bite her. Buffy caught a glimpse of his lower half. It was gone. "Slayer's blood… such sweet elixir, please."_

_"Get off," Buffy growled, her words slurring as she kicked him with her other leg but her movements were sluggish from the blood loss and he burned with anticipation of the bite coming. Dean's boot suddenly connected with the vampire's head, rocking it to the side. He leaned down, digging his hands under her armpits to lift her as the vampire came back, driven by pure bloodlust and bit Dean's calf._

_"Son of a bitch!" Dean roared, dropping Buffy to the ground before shoving his fist into the vampire's throat. It squealed like a pig in a fryer, but it didn't let go, its instincts taking over as it sought out blood, any blood. Instead of using the stake she saw in his pants, Buffy watched Dean move quickly, ripping his leg from the vampire's mouth, leaving behind a chunk of skin and denim._

_Dean stood, limping away before reaching out for her. He heaved her up and the room tilted wildly as Buffy fell into his arms, her eyes visiting a place of pure darkness before the world flickered back to reality._

_"Stand, goddamn it!" he snapped and the voice sounded far away. Like he was standing at the end of a long tunnel and she wondered why the hell he was all the way over there… "We have to move, Buffy. Look at me!"_

_Another crack echoed from the ceiling and instead of seeing what Dean wanted at the opposite end of wherever he was she looked up at the sky. And sky she saw. The remaining ceiling was on fire, smoke billowing out, clearing the air inside the factory for a split second. Just enough for her to see a tumble of rocks falling right for them._

_“Dean!”_

_Buffy didn't have to tell her body to move; she didn’t know where she found the strength but her feet were suddenly underneath her and she shoved Dean away as hard as she could. He flew away at the force, a foot catching the corner of a desk and he fell back, slamming his head on the concrete floor just as the rocks slammed into Buffy._

_This time, the darkness stuck around._

*

Isn’t this the best story ever?

Alright, wrong person to ask. Or thing. You know, I never got the distinction – I mean, you’re a demon inside a human body. A thing inside a human. So I guess you’re a human thing. Whatever.

Anyway, thinking back on that day is like looking through broken binoculars. You know you should be able to see something, know it’s right there but all you see are cracks and lines and everything is blurred and messed up and no matter how hard you try, you can’t fix the glass. That’s what blood loss is like - knowing something was there but unable to do anything about it.

*

_The first thing Buffy was aware of when the fog started clearing was, “Ow.”_

_Lots and lots of ow. Shifting her body felt like she was shoving it into a blender. And putting it on high or super spin or ‘turn your muscles to mulch’ mode. At least she was laying on something soft. Bonus._

_Or was she suffering from a massive concussion or hemorrhage and she thought the concrete floor was soft?_

_An explosion of images shattered in her head as she saw the rock waterfall cascading from the ceiling, right where she was standing with Dean… oh god, Dean…_

_"No! Dean!"_

_The scream left Buffy's throat in a dry rasp as she shot up in the bed, her hands above her head to protect herself from the rocks about to collide with her skull. She felt the arrow wounds pulling on her body and a sharp sting on her cheek while she waited… for nothing._

_Buffy opened her eyes, her lids feeling like sandpaper; her throat was pissed as hell that she was trying to use it at all after all the smoke-breathing she had done. Had done._

_Had done._

_The room was dark save for the beginning light of dawn from behind the blinds - dawn? - and she whipped her head around, hissing in pain but not giving an ounce of hell that she felt something tearing on her skin all over her body and something wet leaking out as she instantly recognized the motel they had chosen._

_But this wasn't her room… Buffy’s eyes flew around before spotting the grimy jeans on the bloodied legs lying next to her on the bed._

_"Oh god," she croaked, relief and horror at the sight of him consuming her as another tear fell, sliding through a cut on her cheek. It stung worse as a few more followed and she turned to Dean where he laid on his uninjured side, facing her. "Dean? Dean?"_

_He was still dressed in the clothes they had been wearing during the raid and he was covered in cuts and bruises and the smoggy residue of the fire. Buffy didn’t even think; didn’t care that she might hurt him, that she was hurting herself. She started shaking him, willing him to open his eyes. "Dean. Dean!"_

_Her vision blurred as she waited for him to respond. God, what if he was dead? What if he hadn't survived, what if Dean was gone and…_

*

For all my brain knew, rationality was actually a country on the other side of the world.

*

_"Dean!" Buffy snapped, her voice cracking from her dry throat, her lips feeling like they were made of tissue paper. Relief bamboozled her when she felt him moving underneath her hand._

_"Christ," he groaned, his eyes still closed. He rolled closer, brushing her hand away and burying his face into a pillow. "Knock it the hell off."_

_"Oh god, thank god," Buffy breathed, followed by a sob. She fell down on him, wrapping her arm around his shoulder as more tears fell._

*

I will say this about blood loss - it messes with your head in some weird ways. For a split second there, I was convinced I was dreaming. La la land for Buffy, that I was just nightmaring it out with the upcoming raid but then not so much.

And instead of the fog the lack of blood in the body had given me, everything was suddenly more vivid and painful and… real.

I lost it.

*

_"I thought I lost you… I-I thought you were dead. I saw you fall and hit your head and that vampire and then the rocks and the fire and-"_

_"Hey, okay, it’s okay. Shh," Dean said. She felt his arms pulling her closer to him before he seemed to change his mind, letting them hang loosely before awkwardly rubbing her back. But she didn't want that. Buffy held him closer, pushing herself against his chest as everything caught up. She wanted to know he was alive, that he was here lying next to her and not bludgeoned to death back at that factory. She wanted… "Hey, I'm fine. You're fine. We're fine."_

_Buffy just shook her head, pinching her lips together to keep the cry inside. Her face was catching on fire from the salty tears in her wounds and she rubbed against the ratted t-shirt he wore, breathing him in. Gone was anything Dean-related and in its place was the smell of burning building. Which only reminded her of how close…_

_A long moment passed before rationality started burrowing into her brain and then everything else followed as she realized they were in the motel. They were safe and alive._

_"I'm sorry," Buffy whispered, squeezing her fingers into his shoulder before forcing herself to let him go. Another bubble of blubbers was building in her chest and Buffy wiped her face roughly, rolling onto her back to stare at the ceiling. The nice neutral ceiling that was, thankfully, intact and not falling to pieces. "Sorry, I don’t know what's wrong with me. I-"_

_"Hey," Dean said, lifting himself up on his elbow to look down at her. More tears floated about in her vision as she stared at the ceiling, not willing to look at him as he tried to catch her eye. She would just cry more. Like a big freaking non-Slayer who had never seen a fight. God, what was wrong with her? She just felt… way too overwhelmed. And the ceiling was so the definition of underwhelmed. "Buffy, look at me."_

_Buffy shook her head, closing her eyes. "I'm okay, I'm sorry. I'm just…" She offered a watery smile, embarrassment getting pretty darn fat inside her head as Dean moved more, talked more and stared more. "I don’t know, I’m sorry.” She gave a watery chuckle. “Happy you lived. Go you."_

_Hot shame filled her chest as she swallowed, not feeling the bed move even a little. She still kept her eyes shut, a tear that felt like it was scorching her skin sliding out the corner of her eye and dipping over her ear and into her hair._

*

I had no idea what was wrong with me. I had survived some pretty hairy situations - including the world ending and sending someone I loved more than life itself to Hell. This was just… pure hysteria. And what’s the definition of hysteria? Extremely exaggerated, and in my case unexplained - at the time at least - emotions that fill you to the brim with its craziness and makes you emote all over the place.

That was me. Good mental imagery, huh?

*

_Buffy took a deep, shaky breath, trying to push it all back down._

_The pain aspect of the entire event was starting to take precedence again, knowing Dean was alive helped elevate that, and she started mentally taking evaluation of her body parts, feeling a level of sanity coming back to her as she found something else to focus on._

_Right. Head still on shoulders, good start. Shoulders seemed okay except for that nagging tugging where the arrow had gotten her but that hadn’t gone through. Right, like the stomach. Buffy stretched, already feeling her healing powers having kicked in. The wound was closed, thank the stomach gods, it was just tender as hell. If she hadn’t been up since early afternoon, that was about sixteen hours of sleep under her belt._

_And god, she was hungry and-_

_Dean cupped her cheek, his thumb rolling underneath her eye to wipe away the salty residue and her eyes snapped open at the warm touch, his face barely an inch from hers. Anticipation like she hadn't felt in years suddenly roared through her body as he hovered over her, his smoke-smudged brow furrowed, his eyes dark. She stared back, eyes wide, leaning into the hand cradling her cheek._

_Buffy bit her lip as he watched at her with an unreadable expression; her eyes danced down to the freckles on his nose - one of the first things she had noticed about him, she remembered - and to his cracked lips before finding his eyes again._

_Buffy felt the air around her getting hot and thick and she tried to take a deep breath as he did nothing. He just stayed there, staring at her… pitying her probably because she obviously cared way too much about him, this random guy, this guy who-_

_He kissed her._


	11. Chapter Eleven - July 2015

**Chapter Eleven - July 2015**

_invisible transfers, long-distance calls_   
_hollow laughter in marble halls_   
_steps have been taken, a silent uproar_   
_has unleased the dogs of war_

Did you see that coming? I sure as hell didn't see that coming. And I know you’re thinking I’m a crazy and stupid person for not seeing that coming.

You know what else I didn't see coming? Remember Bad Land?

*

_Buffy moaned into Dean's mouth, arching into him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. She felt his hand snaking up her back to the nape of her neck, pushing her closer to his chest. Buffy opened her lips, granting him access that he readily took as he moved against her on the bed, neither aware of their wounds while Buffy twisted, throwing her leg over his hip._

_The kiss was a spark and they were the kindle. Buffy wasn't sure if it was the extreme near death experience they had both just had or if there was some serious fire smoke poisoning that had happened but she didn't care. She didn't care that it should probably hurt to kiss with how dry her lips and skin were, with how painful her wounds were despite her quick healing. She didn't pause to ask him if the hole in his leg from the vampire bite was alright or if the wound in his gut was deep._

_She just didn't care._

_All that mattered was Dean: kissing him, holding him, being near, with him. Nothing else mattered._

_The world fell away and all that mattered was Dean’s lips. The shivers along her back when his hand ran down her side, the fingers at her neck squeezing, just enough to insinuate, to hint at what he could do, make her feel._

_Emotions she couldn’t name were slamming like hockey pucks in her chest the more he touched her. Everything was coming back to her, every little touch, every little whisper or glance or suggestion…_

_God, she wanted him. She had wanted him, she just hadn’t even entertained the idea. Her body had known, her heart had known but her mind had had a stranglehold on it until the possibility of him being dead completely destroyed that carefully built wall in her subconscious._

*

And for good reason. Hello… Ted? Remember Ted? It was like I was completely oatmeal raisin Buffy here. Like chocolate chip Buffy had never existed, like nothing had ever happened in New York, like I had always been slaying and like I had always just existed… with Dean.

It was powerful, intoxicating… everything that was wrong that felt so right.

*

_Now… now there was nothing but her and Dean. Like crazy possessed animals, nothing existed but each other and the bed. And unfortunately a few obstacles such as clothes and battle wounds…_

_Buffy shoved her hand underneath Dean’s flannel, trying to push it down his shoulders when her nails grazed where the arrow had hit him. Dean immediately stiffened and cursed against her lips, pulling back with a hiss and Buffy stopped touching him altogether._

_“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She felt that familiar burn in the back of her throat indicating the wild emotions in her head wanting to let loose and fly free but she swallowed hard, pushing it down. God, when did she become so damn emotional about everything? The next thing she knew she would be crying because someone called blue the color purple. “I didn’t-“_

_“I’m fine,” Dean grunted, rolling to his side and yanking the flannel off. Buffy sat up to follow, wincing when she felt her own arrow wound tugging at her muscles but he pushed her back down gently as he moved to lay next to her again. “Are you okay?”_

_“I’m-I’m okay,” Buffy said, taking a deep shaky breath. She felt her heart skip a few beats when his hand landed on her stomach before he paused, like he wasn’t sure what to do. And then he pulled it back. She frowned. “Dean?”_

_“I meant with this,” he said, his voice gruff. His mossy eyes said everything that he didn’t want to put words to, everything that she knew was floating around on the peripheral, waiting to be addressed, needing to be addressed. Things that couldn’t just be ignored, that couldn’t just go away. “Is this…?”_

_“Okay?” Buffy whispered back, her voice cracking. She bit her lip, her eyes watering, stinging the already swollen skin there from all the tears she had already shed. Buffy looked away, her chest burning as she realized what she was about to do. What she wanted to do. What she really, really badly wanted to do. What every molecule in her stupid body was saying, “Absolutely, yes, this is what we all want. Please don’t stop touching us?”_

_Unbidden, an image of Ted rose in her mind and a whole different set of rocks landed on her chest, squeezing the life out of her lungs. These ones were heavier. Made of guilt. And shame. And a slice of terror that none of it mattered as far as she was concerned… Buffy felt her lips tingle as she remembered Dean’s kisses, his hands on her body, his every touch telling her exactly what he wanted just as much as she did…_

_God, what was she doing?_

_She closed her eyes and slowly shook her head._

_Dean let out a heavy breath and Buffy felt the bed dip as he rolled away. She opened her eyes to watch his progression, something deep inside her rending as she stared at his back. He was rubbing his face roughly, too roughly. She could hear the stubble on his face colliding with his calloused hands, his hunter’s hands. The hands that had been touching her so gently, so…_

_Buffy swallowed. So not going there. She could never go there. God, what the hell had she been thinking?_

_Buffy felt another rush of tears coming up and she pushed herself up and off the bed, shuffling painfully to the bathroom. Her back burned with what she imagined was probably his gaze before she closed the door behind her._

_Stabbing on the light, Buffy’s face crinkled with a soundless sob, more hot tears streaming down her cheeks. What the hell kind of person was she? Hey, one life or death situation and you were free to do anything and everything? Even Dean - Dean Winchester, he who put himself out there as a man of questionable morals and ethics - knew. He knew that there was a line and that they had been chugging right toward it without a damn care or thought in the world._

_And what did it mean that she hadn’t cared? That she hadn’t taken two seconds to realize that she belonged to another, that she was with someone else and that doing… what they had been doing was… bad._

_She couldn’t even think his name. She couldn’t bring up his face. It didn’t… matter. Why didn’t it matter? What was wrong with her?_

_Buffy brought a shaking hand to her aching eyes. Everything hurt and the longer she stood and the longer she wanted to just cry and rip out her own stupid viscera, the more everything throbbed. They had just come straight from the crime scene, she could only imagine the damage on her body - a shower sounded divine._

_And full of distractions and avoidance and other such vividly wonderful things she wondered why she wasn’t lunging for the shower curtain right then. And she had thought this little fieldtrip had been a good idea? First, the worst raid in raiding history and then-_

_A sturdy knock rapped the door and Buffy jumped, spinning around. She stared at the door for a split second, her heart and lungs clamoring together to climb right out her throat and slip down the sink drain. Wiping at her eyes and nose, Buffy opened the door._

_Dean was on the other side, staring awkwardly at the door she peeked out from behind. He held up a First Aid Kit, clearing his throat._

_“I, uh… I didn’t check your wounds. When we got back.” Buffy must have been staring at him like he spontaneously grew a second and third nose because he shook the kit. “I was waiting for you to wake up but I fell asleep.”_

_Buffy swallowed. “Oh.” Another awkward second passed before she nodded, stepping back with a little limp from her leg wound to open the door._

_“I won’t take long.”_

_“Okay,” she said. The little voice in the back of her head thought it would be a great idea to remind him that she was a Slayer - that she didn’t really have the healing problems normal humans did and that even a huge hole in her gut was probably going to be okay._

_She didn’t say anything though._

_Something had clearly changed in the last few minutes between what had happened on the bed and now. Or maybe changed was the wrong word - recognized made more sense. Something had been recognized and that something was extremely dangerous. And just bad. And extremely frowned upon because of the bad and the danger._

_He started with the cut on her forehead and the gash on her cheek. They were already healing, closing up and he cleaned away enough blood to make sure. Buffy kept her eyes trained on the wall over his shoulder the entire time, forcing her eyes to stay focused when she felt her heart rate picking up the longer his fingers stayed on her skin._

_They had literally hunted next to each other for months, always touching, always talking, always within range just like this… but nothing like this at the same time. Something had definitely been recognized if the seizure her heart was having was any indication. She felt like she was ready to melt into a pile of goopy crap right here. Leaning back against the counter, Buffy dug her hands into the countertop._

_Dean made quick work of her smaller cuts before moving on to her shoulder. She turned around, facing the mirror as he stood behind her and he took her shirt in hand, using the jagged hole the arrow had left and ripping the shirt enough to get to the wound. Buffy flinched at the movement but not because of the shirt or the stupid wound._

_No. Something else._

_“Sorry,” he murmured. Buffy shook her head, not trusting herself to speak as he examined it. “It looks like it’s going to heal fine.”_

_His voice was deeper than normal, Buffy noted, her mind getting caught in a tailspin before she cleared her throat. His hands stilled for a second and she felt the urge to lean back against him. Bad._

_“What happened?” Buffy asked, her voice cracking. She coughed. “Besides the Plan B plan that I didn’t know anything about.”_

_Dean’s touch was soft on her skin as he poured something alcohol-y onto a swab and cleaned the area. She tried to remember that those hands were mostly used for killing things and that really had the opposite effect. Way to go, brain, way to take one for the team._

_“The roof caved, which was what knocked you out,” Dean said as he tossed the used swab into the sink. Buffy looked down at it for something to do with her eyes and saw the dried dirty blood all over it. “Which, since we’re on that topic, was a goddamn stupid thing of you to do.”_

_Buffy didn’t rise to the topic like she normally would have. She didn’t say anything as Dean continued._

_“Bleeding out, practically to death, and you throw me out the way. It was reckless and stupid.” He shook his head, repositioning the strips of her shirt that he had torn. “Don’t do that again.”_

_Nudging her shoulder, Buffy took the hint, swallowing hard as she turned to face him again. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said, her voice low. He didn’t reply. He bent down so he was face to face with her stomach. She stared at the top of his head as he reached for her shirt. His hand paused, waiting for invitation and she nodded._

_He lifted her blood-soiled shirt, not showing a sign of unease with the blood or the wound. Buffy’s breathing got a little labored when he smoothed the skin around the wound. She bit the inside of her lip as he worked. It was already closing, thankfully. The only thing left was something resembled a moon crater only still quite bloody. Dean folded her shirt up, his fingers doing more touching than Buffy thought was possible. And he was barely touching her._

_Bad._

_“I got knocked out for a second and when I came to, the roof was really coming down. Vamps were getting burned all over the place and the fire was eating it all up. You were completely out when we got out of there.”_

_“And came back here?” Buffy asked with a wince as he cleaned out the dried blood inside the wound. He nodded. “I’m surprised you didn’t… take me to the hospital. I remember being really out of it. Like, hey, look-at-those-monkeys-on-the-ceiling out of it.”_

_Dean smirked at her stomach. “I tried. I was freaking the hell out, but you almost broke my wrist when I told you what I was doing.”_

_“What?”_

_“You came to for about five minutes, rambling on about something or other. You kept calling me a jackass,” he said with a smile, not looking up at her and she chuckled. “When I told you where we were going, you lost it. So we came back here because you were about to throw yourself out of the moving vehicle. I was going to make you go when you were knocked out but then I fell asleep and…”_

_Here they were…_

_“Sorry,” Buffy said, not sure if she meant the everything that happened, almost breaking his wrist, losing so much blood that he felt like she had to go to the hospital…_

_“Stop saying that crap,” Dean said. “We made it out, that’s all that matters. Turn around.” Buffy did as instructed, bracing her hands on the counter again as he lifted the back of her shirt higher to see the entrance wound. “I broke the arrow off, I don’t think any wood got in there.”_

_Buffy just nodded as his hands skimmed across her back. She broke out in goose bumps and almost lamely commented on how cold it was in the room. Instead, she bit her tongue this time._

_“It’s impressive,” he said, his voice low. Buffy stared at the parts of him she could see in the mirror before glancing over her shoulder in question. “The healing.”_

_“Oh. Yeah.”_

_Silence reigned once again as he worked. Buffy winced every five seconds but not because of his gentle cleaning. No. Something else. Bad, all bad._

_Buffy jumped when he cleared his throat, the sound bouncing off the walls like a hopped up slinky._

_“Uh, the uh…” Dean cleared his throat again, his voice even as he continued, “The wound in your leg. I can’t get to it with these jeans on.”_

_“Oh. Right,” was all Buffy said, but she didn’t move. The thought of her pants coming off anywhere near him sounded like the best and the worst thing in the entire world. And that list was gigantic. Her fingers itched and she felt the buckle of her belt burning against her skin before she swallowed hard. “Here.”_

_She reached back and ripped the jeans for him, ignoring the sting in her shoulder and her abdomen. The cut on her hand felt like it was being grilled alive as she tore the material, making a big enough hole for him to work. Of course it was supposed to be a small hole._

_She practically shredded the jeans in her haste for a solution, exposing her entire thigh and she felt the cool air hit her bottom. Buffy closed her eyes, embarrassment and horror filling her. God, this was all so… bad. What had happened and how? Wasn’t it just twenty-four hours ago that she was arguing with him in the bar? Like normal hunting people did? No tension, no weirdness, none of this awful stuff happening right then…_

_She heard Dean take a deep breath and that did more to her nervous system than anything ever before his fingers touched her skin. The goose bumps that erupted irritated where the arrows had hit her and she concentrated on that. Pain was good. Pain was excellent and maybe she could start taking up some really painful therapeutic techniques that included hanging cement blocks from her ears…_

_He worked swiftly and easily, cleaning out hole in her leg. He made another comment about healing but Buffy barely heard him over the sound of her heart beating the crap out of her chest plate. Her lungs physically hurt when he applied a bandage to the spot from her not breathing._

_“Okay,” he said, standing. “All done.”_

_“Thanks,” she said, her voice drowning in the stunningly awful black hole of an elephant standing between them. Buffy watched him in the mirror as he shifted around her to throw some more bloody cotton balls into the sink and Buffy finally let go of her death grip on the counter. “Uh, do you need me to do… the same? For you?”_

_Dean’s face was the perfect image of pure unadulterated nothingness as he met her gaze in the mirror. His eyes, though, were hot and liquidy, starting a hot and liquidy sensation to build in her body that was making thinking hard. It was the strangest thing in the world to think because how could eyes be liquidy? Sure, Angel’s had been liquidy but that’s because he had spent the last couple of centuries perfecting his leering abilities… Dean’s were…_

_Buffy licked her lips, her breathing getting heavy as they just stared at each other in the mirror, everything that had happened at the warehouse, in the room, in here… hell, everything that had happened over the last several months flew between them._

_Wow, she had done a darn good job of ignoring every single sign between them ever. She felt like someone had turned off the denial switch in her brain and everything was now more recognizable._

_Stupid, stupidly recognizable._

_“No,” he finally said, his tone unsure and the disappointment that walloped Buffy in the stomach was palpable as he shook his head, turning his back to her. He didn’t meet her eyes again as he continued, “No, I’m good. You should go get some rest. We’ll be taking off tonight.”_

_Buffy let out a shaky breath. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll go…” Buffy swallowed, pointing to the door of his motel room. She glanced at him but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead he stared at the floor, like it was a mosaic of the utmost importance and he couldn’t look away. She bit her lip. “I’ll go.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_That was it. Nothing else. Buffy could tell by the way he was standing that he was obviously in physical pain although whether that was from his wounds or from the epic thunderstorm of whatever the hell was happening between them, Buffy couldn’t tell. And then she started feeling stupid and foolish as he didn’t look up and she nodded, heading out._

_She was the one in a relationship. She was the one out here in the middle of nowhere, pursuing something that should never - could never - be pursued… Was that what she was doing? How was he seeing something she couldn’t, was she really that stupid?_

*

The answer was yes. Although you probably already guessed that, judging by the judgy look you’re sending my way. Hey, buddy, you try being in that position and see how you do, huh? Not easy.

Nothing is ever easy. Even when it’s supposed to be easy and old terrain and already traveled and blah blah blah…

But I just never seem to learn. Life lessons bounce off me like I’m rubber.

So I went back to my room. I took a shower, I reapplied my own bandages and I laid down and I… stared at the ceiling. In my defense, it was a great ceiling. A lot of cracks and water stains; provided a nice natural maze for my eyes to follow for the next several hours.

*

_Buffy couldn’t stop thinking about how hard it was to breathe. Like, breathing should be easy. Natural. Her body should just go through the motions, know what it has to do because oxygen was pretty imperative to living. And she liked living. And so obviously, she should like breathing._

_But right now, it was so not easy._

_She couldn’t settle the host of zebras trampling her organs. With every minute that passed, she felt worse. It wasn’t nausea or fear or adrenaline… it was nerves. Like she was waiting for that final push before she exploded but nothing ever happened._

_It was making her want to crawl the walls._

_Her room was dead silent. A motel in the middle of the day had that effect, sure, since no one actually sat all day in their rented rooms. They were for sleeping and holding your items while you weren’t there. She should be sleeping… she was tired. Dead exhausted and her body ached in all sorts of places she had forgotten even existed._

_But she couldn’t sleep. Too wired. And for the wrong reasons. The entire warehouse incident wasn’t even on her mind, and that had the potential to be front and center._

_No. All she could think about was Dean._

_Along with crawling the walls, she was also crawling the ceiling. Probably to get away from the stupid thoughts that were plaguing her like locust but they just followed her wherever she went. She followed one crack along the ceiling until it led to a wall and so she picked another one and that just led her to another wall. All walls. Stupid walls and stupid not breathing and stupid brain not thinking about anything else._

_She had to get a grip. Whatever had happened back in that warehouse, whatever had changed between them in such a short time was dangerous. Too dangerous. And really out of the blue since things had been fine between them not even a day ago. What had happened?_

_Maybe that was why she couldn’t rest: the situation warranted a lot of thinking and figuring out only she couldn’t concentrate enough on one thought to do just that._

_“I would like to sleep,” she said to the empty room. “Please let me sleep. I’m tired. And because I’m tired, I would like to sleep. So let’s… sleep.” Buffy closed her eyes but instead of the welcoming arms of slumber, she found the welcoming arms of something else. Her eyes snapped open in exasperation. “Alright fine. You don’t want to sleep, brain, that’s just fine. I’ll go take a walk until I feel like collapsing. Until you find it too hard to be awake.”_

_Buffy rolled off the bed, her determination like a proud badge as she grabbed her sneakers and slid them on, still talking to herself. “Doesn’t that sound like fun, collapsing? Maybe it will be in an empty field and we’ll get eaten by scarecrows. Golly, let’s do this.”_

_Her sarcasm followed her out the door, her limp noticeably better as she slammed the door behind her, yanking the key in to lock the door._

_What felt like an eternity later, Buffy arrived back at the motel. The sun was high in the sky, making her eyes ache from the brightness. She was sweating and panting slightly as she paused in front of the door, wiping her brow. Not a wise thing to do, the walking, mostly because sweat inside wounds - no matter how quickly they were closing - stung._

_Buffy gripped the key in the pocket of her sweatshirt, staring at the door. She turned to look at the one right next door, worrying her bottom lip before looking back at the one in front of her. She pulled the key out, ready to use it… instead, she left in her pocket and knocked on the door._

_The passing cars in the parking lot ceased long enough for her to hear that he had been watching TV and he had just switched it off at the sound of her knocking. The longest moment ever seemed to sludge by as she waited, staring at the door, willing it to both stay closed and open. The moment turned into another before another and she started counting to thirty, knowing when she hit that high number she was going to do the right thing and go back to her room._

_Alone._

_Where she belonged._

_She was at twenty-three when the door opened._

_His face was blank as he stared at her. His eyes danced around her, checking out the scenery behind her before he looked at her again._

_“Hey,” she said softly._

_Dean grunted. “You okay?”_

_Buffy just stared at him and he didn’t need to ask questions. He looked down, shaking his head. “Buffy, go back to your room.”_

_She didn’t respond, staring at the crown of his head. She licked her lips uncertainly, making them feel drier than they already were as she looked inside his room before over to where he was gripping the doorjamb. His fingers were turning yellow from the pressure and she looked back to see he was staring at her. She met his gaze._

_“This is stupid,” he finally groaned, shaking his head before chuckling. He looked at her pointedly. “Really stupid.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Alright, good, we agree.” Dean released the jamb, pointing to her room. “Now go.”_

_Buffy didn’t. Buffy didn’t do a lot of things in that moment. It was like she was looking through a tunnel as everything she had been thinking for the last few hours came to an abrupt conclusion. Nothing else mattered. She didn’t care what waited for her back in New York. She didn’t care that Dean was trying to be the good guy, doing the right thing. She didn’t care that she should be doing the right thing too._

_She just didn’t care._

_“Buffy-“_

_She cut him off, her feet moving of their own accord as she stepped into his room, wrapping one hand around his neck to bring him to her height while the other grabbed a handful of his t-shirt, pulling him in closer as their lips met. And just like that morning, the kiss was the spark and they were the kindle waiting to burn as the kiss came to life. Buffy moaned into his mouth, standing as tall as she could, trying to get closer. And then his arms were around her, pulling her in, crowding her against his chest._

_Buffy didn’t know who was where or what they were doing. Everything was about the sensations raining through her body as he mauled her mouth and she returned the favor. He smelled like the cheap soap stocked in the bathrooms. His beard was harsh against her skin. He was this brick wall that everything and everyone threw themselves at and nothing made an effect… until now as he melted against her, fitting himself to her body as she did to his. It felt so good, and he tasted so amazing. Dean. This man she had spent so long getting to know, who she had faced life and death situations with time after time… he was here, in her arms, and that was all that mattered. A blaze ignited under her skin everywhere he touched and she delighted in his shiver and his pulling her even closer._

_And then he broke the kiss, pulling back, forcing her to step back._

_“Buffy, you don’t know what you’re doing,” he said gruffly._

_“Yes,” she said, nodding, “Yes, I do.”_

_He was shaking his head, his mouth open to do the one thing he was the best at, berating her, but she didn’t let him, pulling his face back down to hers, their lips clashing again. The kiss was full of need, unfulfilled desires and everything that had gone unsaid for so many months. The kiss was a spark in a dark night and Buffy couldn’t get enough of him, her body overflowing with the pull for more._

_Dean yanked back again, his voice strained as she shook his head in her hands. “Buffy-“_

_“Don’t stop,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his again. “Please. Don’t stop touching me.” He kissed her, his tongue wrestling with hers before he made himself pull back again. Buffy’s lips tingled with the loss._

_A heavy silence started filling up the empty spaces between them._

_“Dean,” she said softly, her eyes closed, pulling him into the circle of her arms as his fingers dug into her sweatshirt. She felt her heart stop as the silence prolonged and she held her breathe, waiting for him to push her away._

_Instead a strangled sound escaped his throat and then his hand was on her cheek, lifting her face to his and he was kissing her._

_Buffy whimpered against his lips as he pulled her up against his body, his arms tight around her. Their wounds once again didn’t exist. The fights didn’t exist. The room, the location, the time… Nothing existed but each other, the feeling of the other’s body against their own, the need and the desire building quickly._

_Somehow the door to the room was slammed shut and he managed to back them up until they were at his bed. There was no stopping, no pausing this time. They both knew, they both understood and they both didn’t care._

_Buffy helped him strip her shoes and pants off, yanking her panties down as she lay back on the bed. He followed, his jeans already undone as he shoved them down. Buffy’s hands were buried in his hair as he pushed her legs up. She didn’t feel the strain in her shoulder, the pull in her abdomen or the tear of her thigh. She didn’t care about what this was doing to him and his battle wounds. She didn’t feel anything but Dean’s calloused fingers dancing across her skin. The heat between her legs waiting for him and the short pants leaving his mouth as more skin touched, more passion built, more nerves waited for the breaking point._

_Without any pretense or waiting, Dean thrust into her, filling her and Buffy arched her body, meeting him as she cradled him against her, a short cry leaving her lips. His lips suddenly covered hers and she returned the kiss with ardor, pulling him in as close as she could as the bed rocked beneath them, scraping against the threadbare carpet. The cheap mattress springs danced in tune with their thrusts, moans and cries muffled in kisses._

_It was everything that had gone unsaid between them, everything that had built up to that moment. It was hot, hard and fast and comforting, passionate and healing._

_When Buffy came, her back corded, her mouth open in a silent scream as she dug her nails into his back so hard her nail beds wailed in pain. Something snapped inside her, something new and strange filling her to the brink as he filled her…_

*

You can probably imagine where this is going… or maybe not.

Either way, spoilery cliff note? I wouldn’t have done anything different.


	12. Chapter Twelve - July 2015

**Chapter Twelve - July 2015**

_breaking and you’re climbing_   
_and my innocence is all you have_   
_I can hear you crying_   
_from places only you can understand_

_The sun was starting to peek over the horizon._

_Buffy stood in the doorway of Dean’s room, her arms crossed as she leaned against the doorjamb. The night air was cool, waiting for the sun to come along and beat it away and she shivered in her jacket. She heard Dean moving around in the room behind her, finishing up packing his bag._

_They hadn’t talked since they had woken up that morning, Dean’s watch alarm waking them up early as all hell so they could make it back in time for Buffy to get to work._

_Work._

_Home._

_Reality._

_Buffy’s face was blank as she stared at the dim glow coming up over the world. She heard Dean walking towards the door and he didn’t say a word or barely glance at her as he brushed past her and headed towards the open trunk of the Impala. Buffy watched him lift the covering to his weapon cache and grab his handy shotgun before letting the cover drop. He tossed his bag in on top of it and shut the trunk._

_He still didn’t look back at her as he headed towards the driver’s side door, leaning in and tucking the gun in under his seat._

_He then turned, heading towards the office to check them out._

_Buffy took a deep, shaky breath, watching him walk away. When he disappeared in the office, she turned to look in the room where she had spent the last twelve hours. She would be lying if she thought it had been anything short of amazing… and she would be lying if she said she was okay with what had happened; that she was ashamed, but full of no regrets. That she… had a plan. Knew what she was doing. Was being smarter than someone would think…_

_Instead, she felt like she was straddling a fence, standing between two worlds._

_One was inside this room where everything was easy and full of warmth. She had found something in Dean’s arms she hadn’t even realized she had been missing… something that seemed to put the pieces inside her together, fitting perfectly in place. They hadn’t stopped but to nap for an hour here and there; either they were making love or they were talking or they were napping._

_It had been… everything. Everything that was new and shiny, yet old and familiar. A new side of Dean that she never would have dreamed of seeing and a side of her she thought had long ago died, long before Sunnydale disappeared._

_And now it was over. And the real world was pressing back in, and she was remembering the things she had had planned that weekend with people who had no idea what she was doing._

_Buffy stared at the unmade bed, not knowing what to call the lump making a way too comfy home in her throat. Regret? Sadness? Pain? Guilt?_

_She felt insanely numb, like her emotions had taken a vacation because they knew the shit storm that was on the horizon and was heading straight for them at terrifying speeds. Well, that didn’t help anything, emotions, get it together._

_She needed to get it together. And what was it that she needed to get together? She didn’t know._

_Numb._

_The sun was rising behind her, reality seeping back into what she had done yesterday… despite her inability to feel anything at the moment, she couldn’t think about both worlds at the same time. They both fit. When she thought about what had happened here, she felt right. Complete in ways she had never felt before and ways she couldn’t even put a name to._

_But when she thought about what waited for a couple dozen miles east… that felt right in its own ways too._

_So… what now?_

_Swallowing the marble down, Buffy gripped the doorknob to the room, staring at the bed before turning away, closing the door behind her._

_Dean was waiting for her at the car and she started at the sight. She hadn’t even heard him come up._

_He just looked at her, his face unreadable before licking his lips and looking away. He opened his door and got in without a word. With each step Buffy took to her side of the Impala, she felt like she was sinking deeper and deeper into concrete quicksand. She was aware of what had happened, knew she should be doing something or saying something, but the curious numbness was winning the game._

_She opened her door, the hinges groaning, before closing it gently behind her._

_He didn’t move to start the car. He just sat and stared at the rising sun and she did the same. It wasn’t uncomfortable or weird, but it wasn’t comfortable and easy either._

_It was… nothingness._

_“So what now?” he asked in a low voice._

_Buffy’s eyes didn’t leave the rising sun, the orange hues starting to touch on the hood of the car. A long moment passed wherein she thought about the answer to that question. What now… What had happened between them yesterday? What were they now? And what about her life back home? Who was she? What was home? What did she want?_

_What did she want?_

_“I don’t know,” she said softly in reply, turning to look out the passenger side window. She felt Dean’s gaze burning her where he stared and she turned to him, not sure what to expect… They hadn’t talked about the morning after. They hadn’t talked about her world in Manhattan or his world on the road. Neither said a word as they just looked at each other, neither breaking the bubble growing between them…_

_Dean shifted in his seat, the leather of his jacket rubbing against itself as he offered her a lame smile. She tried to return it but it was that kind of smile where your muscles moved with what your brain commanded, but the emotional kickback was devastating._

_He leaned forward, starting the car. It came to life with a roar, disturbing the peace of the morning, breaking it. Shattering it._

_Dean put it into drive, and the car lurched away from the motel._

_Buffy watched it disappear in her mirror as he drove her back to New York City._

*

Worst. Car trip. Ever.

While the one out there had been hugely uncomfortable because were mad at each other, this one was so much worse. We didn’t talk. There was no music. There was just the road, the people we passed and the sight of Manhattan. He didn’t even gripe when he entered the city because he hated driving among the crazy inhabitants.

There was just… nothing.

And I made it worse when I asked him to drop me off a block away from the apartment.

It was the answer to the question that had hung between us like a rotting elephant carcass.

He just stopped, pulling into an empty spot. He didn’t put the car in park, he didn’t look at me. I sat for a minute, waiting… for what? I didn’t even know but for something… but nothing happened.

And what was I supposed to expect? Things had changed.

And it was one thousand percent my fault.

When I got out, he took off, barely giving me a chance to close the door.

*

_Buffy stood on the street, watching Dean's taillights until they turned a corner and were gone. She heard a few customary honks and she imagined how he was reacting, throwing his hands up, yelling, gripping the steering wheel until his hands were pale with lack of blood… or maybe nothing. Maybe he was just like he had been, just like she was… numb._

_Or angry._

_Taking a deep shaky breath, Buffy's hand tightened on her bag and she thought about moving to follow the sidewalk down the same street she had just watched him drive down._

_She didn't move. The sun was hot, making the sweatshirt itchy and suffocating but she didn't move… Someone with a large cart of magazines was rattling by when one of the wheels turned on its own, careening the cart towards her and someone yelling at her with a Russian accent jerked her back to her senses and she sidestepped the cart just in time._

_The Russian continued to sputter curses about the wheel and apologizing before accusing her of not moving and she just stared at him before nodding, agreeing with whatever he was saying and turning to look down the road. Wondering if he would randomly appear, be coming back… to say what?_

_She had said no. No to the invisible question that nobody had wanted to utter… No._

_The block-long trek to the apartment was long and for the first time since yesterday morning, she felt the ache in her thigh from where the arrow had entered her as she climbed up the stairs. When she reached the front door, she stopped._

_She was still numb._

_She felt like she should be going through the motions of what she should say to someone. Like… Ted. And probably Marinna since she was probably late to work and why she was also wearing so many layers to hide the wounds that were still healing and why she couldn't stay for a drink or why she was away for the weekend or why she might be falling…_

_Buffy stopped herself, turning the key. No. That was impossible; it was the heat of the moment, things were getting intense. Lives had almost ended, death was all around them, it was only inevitable that something would happen like that._

_It had nothing to do with emotions or feelings or anything other than responding to the situation._

_The clean definition felt too sterile._

_She entered the apartment, dropping her bag on the floor, absently reminding herself that she had to discard of the clothes she had accidentally brought along that were burned and covered in blood. She wanted to take a shower since she hadn't taken once since yesterday morning because…_

_She wanted to think of what she would say to Ted when she told him what had happened._

_Because that's what she was going to do._

_Tell Ted._

_Buffy sat on the couch, staring at the blank small TV screen. The sun was coming through the window and creating a harsh glare on the screen, letting her see the dark hole that was her reflection where she sat._

_'Ted, we have to talk.'_

_'Something happened this weekend. I don't know what or how or why or when or how or….'_

_'There's… this guy… and it's like I'm someone else when I'm with him and someone else with you and…'_

_'I cheated on you.'_

_The word made Buffy want to vomit, nausea strolling through her stomach like it was on a parade. Oh god, what had she done? And like the answer to a math equation, Dean’s face as he waited for her to get out of the car popped up into her head and the nausea doubled._

_Buffy felt the tears clamoring at the back of her throat as she watched Dean driving away in her mind’s eye again._

_"Buffy?"_

_Buffy jerked, turning to look over her shoulder as Ted came out of their bedroom. He was frowning as he stopped tying the tie around his neck. She felt like her eyes were wide as saucers, that she was giving everything away, that she was about to set fire to everything that had made her feel safe and happy in the last few years…_

_"Are you just getting home?"_

_Buffy looked away, swallowing before standing. She could taste the words on the tip of her tongue, knew that they were there and ready to come out… she felt the physical presence of the words as she thought about shoving everything out like a spray of word vomit… just to get it over with._

_"Ted…" she started, her voice sounding distant and he reached her, that familiar Ted smile on his face. He touched her sweatshirt, held her arm and leaned in for a kiss._

_She didn't feel any of it._

_"Did you find anything? I think Marinna called here earlier…"_

_'Ted, I have to tell you something.'_

_"She didn't leave a message though, so I assumed you guys came back separately…"_

_'Ted, I… '_

_"Buffy?"_

_Buffy opened her mouth. Ted stared at her expectantly._

_"We didn't find anything," were the words that came out, her voice false. She shrugged. "A trip that was the definition of nada."_

*

So… imagine my life is a snow globe, right? You have to shake the contents for some action so when you turn it right-side up, everything is a magical world that hadn’t been there before, where the snow is righting itself and falling back into place.

The moment those vampires attacked me in that alleyway and the moment Dean entered my life… my snow globe had been upside down and shaking itself for around like a crazy thing.

I tried. I really did try. With Ted. With chocolate chip Buffy. I told myself the weekend had been a fluke, a mistake of seriously epic proportions and that I had done a fine job burning the bridges between Dean and I so I was probably never going to see him again. Which meant I could go back to my sunshiny and happy life like that weekend had never happened.

I was wrong.

That weekend had changed me. Something had clicked into place after the warehouse, after surviving together, after… everything that had happened, everything that had passed between us.

Ted immediately noticed something was up.

He saw the change in me too, despite my efforts for a while. A lot of it was the guilt factor, despite my insistence that nothing had come from that weekend but some vampire burnage. What kind of person was I to do this to Ted? The most amazing human being to ever walk the planet, the one guy who had given me a normal life, who had given me a light at the end of the tunnel when it came to the darkest shadows of my life… only to have me treat what we had like it was nothing more than bitter ash in my mouth.

But I didn’t say anything. I never said anything… I explained away the weekend, saying the search hadn’t gone well. That we were down an artist at the gallery, that… excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse…

After a while, I became a shadow and I started hating myself for it. It was turning into my existential crisis from Sunnydale all over again. I didn’t have the words to say what had passed between us that weekend or an explanation of what and how it had happened… but it stayed with me, sticking to me like I was caught in a gigantic spider web of doom and gloom and all I could do was struggle to get away from it, try to stay in the happy parts of the pieces still left of my life in New York City.

The only time I felt like myself - felt alive - was when I was slaying. Hunting. I went out every single night.


	13. Chapter Thirteen - Aug-Sept 2015

**Chapter Thirteen - August 2015 (three weeks later)**

_hoedown, say showdown_   
_everywhere you look_   
_we’re fighting…_   
_hear the call…_

_She wasn't going anywhere._

_Buffy put on a burst of speed, leaping in the air with her leg straight out. The heel of her boots caught the vampire in the middle of her back, forcing her to fall face-first into the concrete. Buffy followed along, their limbs getting tangled as they rolled around on the ground._

_The vamp hissed at her, her claws scratching at her but Buffy didn’t feel any of it as she struggled with her. They rolled on the concrete, rocks and debris biting into Buffy’s back. She felt the heat and the burn of the vampire’s breath on her neck, the drip of the anticipatory saliva on her canines closing in on her as Buffy reached around and yanked the vamp’s long, red hair._

_A high pitched squeal escaped her throat and Buffy used the leverage to roll around so she was straddling the girl._

_Buffy hit her once. Twice. A few more times. The sound of her bones cracking under her fists echoed against the walls around her and Buffy felt the lackluster attempts to shove her off. But she was in control now. The vampire was the prey now, no longer the hunter…_

_Buffy yanked the stake out of the back of her pants and slammed it down into her chest. With an audible pop, she burst into dust, the remnants mingling into the patchwork street._

_Buffy took a deep breath, rolling to her feet. She closed her eyes, stretching her neck until it popped before focusing. She had felt two…_

_A door in the alley popped open and Buffy’s eyes flew open._

_“Hey, lady, what the hell ya doin’ out here?” a burly man asked her, his voice rough, his face shadowed from the light coming from inside the restaurant._

_Just saving your ass, no big deal._

_“Nothing,” Buffy replied shortly, putting the stake back and turning away from him, melting back into the shadows._

*

I found vampires, a few demons. I cleaned up the streets as best I could, widening my circle until it started encompassing blocks and blocks and blocks. I found nests and exterminated them. I tracked vampires all the way to Jersey. I was everywhere and anywhere, every single night, not going home until I was too tired to barely stand.

It was the only way I could face the next day with a smile on my face. It was the only way I could be chocolate chip Buffy. It was the only way I could get rest without actually getting rest.

It was the only way I could excuse the fact that I wandered around, looking around every corner and down every street, secretly hoping to see that familiar shadow, hear that familiar engine…

But he was never there.

I tried calling him after the first month. It went straight to an automated voicemail and I didn't leave anything. About two months later, after not seeing him and fully, one hundred percent expecting to get that familiar drop-in that I had become so accustomed to… that I had started looking forward to so much that I was actually putting my heart into a grinder the longer he didn't show, I tried again. It rang and rang and rang, never going to voicemail.

He'd probably gotten rid of that phone.

He didn't call and I didn't try again.

I was back to being oatmeal raisin cookie Buffy by night and chocolate chip cookie Buffy by day. I started making myself spend more time with Ted, I hung out more with Marshall and Lily and Robin and I hit a gay club. I went suit shopping with Barney and I even hooked Robin up with a sexy new artist whose name really was Simon.

During the day, I was back to being the sunshiny and rosy Buffy, but my heart wasn’t in it. The only time I felt like I was really me was when I went hunting at night…

And I think Ted somehow knew that.

He sensed the difference the minute I got back from the hunt with Dean. He knew something had changed but then we both got really good at the avoidy thing. We didn’t talk about it. In fact, we stopped talking about all things that were awkward and hard. We both got really good at the surface stuff, at being that couple… while everything slowly melted into a pot of dead bodies.

I was in the motions of life, having finally put what had happened behind me, knowing that things weren’t ever going to be the same and trying to convince myself that I was okay with that…

When he came back.

*

**September 2015 (four weeks later)**

_It was the sound of a fight that had her running._

_There was really no such thing as an empty street in New York City, no matter the time or day or location, but this one was, barely any cars parked on the street. A series of decrepit buildings lined one side and a large metal-link fence lined the other with large pictures of the next new apartment high rise, aimed to raise the value of the neighborhood and give people with actual money a reason to say they lived in this district or that or whatever people did._

_They were in the middle of the road, one beating the other back towards the building-lined side of the street. It was brutal and she could hear the sound of flesh hitting flesh as she slowed a bit, dodging into the shadows of the buildings so she could come up unannounced. She had to be a bit more careful who she randomly dropped in on these days. The last time she had stopped a fight it had actually been two amateur gangs fighting over something as measly as a block of turf. She’d had to break three kneecaps and a few noses once they all turned on her for interrupting._

_Not a shining Slayer moment._

_They were fighting in the shadow of the streetlights and she couldn’t get a good look at them when one of them rammed their forehead into the others and then a stake was in his hand. Buffy stopped against the security bars on a window, her fingers wrapping around the cool metal, her jaw dropping, close enough to hear the grunt of exertion as he shoved the stake into the vampire’s chest._

_Buffy forgot how to breathe as her nervous system seized._

_Dean._

_He didn’t pause to catch his breath or wait to see if someone had seen anything. He flipped the stake in his hand, placing it into an inner pocket and then he turned, heading into a black hole of an alleyway at a light jog. Buffy didn’t take a second to re-learn how to breathe or check the rest of the street or even ask herself what he was doing here. She followed._

_Buffy rounded the corner, glancing around quickly. No lights, no night vision. Everything was a giant ink ball._

_“Dean?” she said softly, her voice barely carrying in the muggy air and she swallowed uncertainly when nothing responded. She stepped on a broken glass bottle, startling herself. She looked behind her before heading deeper. Still nothing responded. “Dean?”_

_Buffy followed the alley out to the other side, her eyes adjusting as she looked down both sides of the street. She didn’t hear any cars or anyone running. She actually heard nothing, not even the night breeze rustling some garbage or someone yelling a few blocks away. A whole lot of nothingness except for the wave of disappointment that started filling her chest cavity like it wanted her to drown as she realized he was gone._

_She had lost him. Again._

_Dean. He had been here, she’d know him anywhere. The sound of his fighting, the way he walked, the way he punched…_

_“Dean?” she asked again, turning back to look in the alley, stepping past a double-sided dumpster when a hand shot out of the darkness, grabbing her arm and yanking her into the shadow along with it. “He-“_

_Dean’s hand slapped across her mouth, cutting her off as he pulled her deeper into the shadows. Buffy followed instinctively, blindly, thinking about nothing other than ‘holy crap, Dean was here’ as he whispered harshly, "Shut up."_

_He didn't remove his hand. Buffy swallowed, finding that the only thing she could focus on was not moving her lips against his hand where he held it over her face. Because that would be weird and what would he think? That she was back in fourth grade, slobbering all over someone's hand and…_

_Buffy closed her eyes for a second, stopping her thoughts. She was nervous. Obviously. She tried to slow her breathing from the adrenaline hockey puck she'd received when he grabbed her, but it only made her breathe harder._

_Dean was back._

_She should have been concentrating on the fact that he was holding her almost against her will - pretty much against her will considering he was basically treating her like an insolent child who wouldn't stop talking… but all she could concentrate on was the rush of emotions and the effect they were having on her body. Everything was hyperaware and tingly. He was warm against her, fighting off the chill of the night; she could feel him through her jacket where she was pressed to him. His hand smelled like wood and cold._

_Dean was here._

_Buffy's eyes ticked up to see him but it was too dark - it was all physical as his hand wound around her back, keeping her still. Buffy swallowed, remembering the last time he had touched her at all. It had been in the motel room, which felt like just yesterday considering the rush of warmth that tickled across the surface of her skin. She shivered against him and she felt his hold loosening just a smidge._

_Buffy pulled her head away from his hand, but didn't move away, her voice barely above a whisper, "What's going on?"_

_"Shh," he whispered back. He wasn't breathing, like he was trying to listen and then she heard something. A car door opening. But this was nothing like the Impala's gargantuan car door mouths opening - these were soft and subtle, shut with a gentle click, trying to be quiet. Her stomach cramped wildly and the awkwardness of being near Dean melted away as her Slayer senses kicked into gear._

_There were six of them, coming from where she had just seen Dean slay one. And they were heading into the alleyway._

_"They know we're here," she said, not bothering to be quiet and she heard Dean roll his eyes._

_"Thanks, Sherlock," he grunted, easing out to glance behind the dumpster. Buffy did the same. Oh yeah, there were six. And they were all pro wrestler-sized, although they were unfortunately sans the tight colorful unitards._

_"Did someone put out a hit on you that I haven't heard about?" Buffy joked, trying to keep her tone light as they started filling the alley entrance. Dean didn't respond and Buffy felt the crack in her concentration as he shifted behind her, his arm sliding against her back. She shivered again and he must have felt it because he stepped away from her._

_She didn't like the way her heart deflated and she forced herself to take a deep, shaky breath. But really, what had she been expecting? Him to grab her and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe again? A flood of shame slammed into her chest plate with such force, she gasped, her lungs closing._

_Suddenly Buffy wanted to hurt things. Really badly._

_Clenching the edge of the dumpster, she waited as the vampires started looking around. The alley seemed especially long here for some reason or that was probably just her mind screwing with her perception since the closer they got, the less time she had left with Dean._

_God, Summers, get your crap together._

_"Plan?" she asked gruffly, her voice cold and narrow._

_Dean grunted, his voice just as devoid. "Stay right here and don't die."_

_"Wow," Buffy mused. "Aren't you a bundle of A+ planning."_

_"Bite me."_

_Buffy clenched her jaw. "Fine. How about I go out and play bait while you stand back here and hide like a little girl."_

_There was a heavy pause and she felt Dean's glare in the back of her head. "That’s a bad idea.”_

_“Well I’m not hearing any other great ideas for how we’re going to handle this, so we’re kinda stuck, aren’t we?”_

_“You can shove the bitchy attitude right back up your ass," Dean replied. Buffy glared at him over her shoulder. “Whatever crawled up there and died, don’t go shoving it on my plate.”_

_It was you, she thought, but she held that to herself. Because it was him, but it wasn't at the same time. Three freaking months later and she still didn't know what to do or what she was doing in the first place. The crazy joy she had felt shuddering through her when she had seen him had been staggering, but now the numbness from the motel was back._

_She wondered if her mind was just trying to protect herself from… well, herself. Been there, done that, haven't we, brain? You know how Buffy emotions turn out, don't you?_

_"Whatever," Buffy said, stepping out from behind the dumpster._

_“Goddamn it, no,” Dean whispered harshly as he grabbed the back of her jacket but she slipped through his fingers._

_"Hey!" she called to the vamps, hearing Dean cursing softly where she left him. The vampires stopped and Buffy advanced, holding her hands out, the rush of irrational stupidity clashing with annoyance and anger at herself giving her some extra pep in her step. She knew the odds weren’t in her favor and she didn’t care. She felt better out here with six gigantic vampires than in the shadows with her one human. "I've got midnight snack written all over my cute designer skirt, buddy."_

_The vampires didn't move and Buffy slowed to a stop, staring at them. They didn't advance. They didn't say anything._

_"Hello? Nice, ripe juicy girl just standing here, waiting to be eaten," she yelled at them but nothing happened. "Guys?"_

_Instead of doing the typical vampire dance of taunting, chortling, chuckling, hissing or growling… they were silent. It was intensely unnerving as Buffy stood in the alley, watching them as they watched her. She didn't hear Dean behind her. She couldn't see what they were doing although it was clear that the mission didn’t involve drinking her blood from her limbs like champagne glasses._

_In fact, it felt like the mission didn’t involve her at all._

_A heavy disquiet settled in Buffy’s stomach as they continued to stare at her and she frowned. No, this was definitely not right._

_"Slayer here," she continued, stepping forward. They didn't move. They actually seemed to become even more statue-like at her words. "What is this, the Twilight Zone?"_

_Buffy couldn’t see their faces, shaded in the dark, made deeper by the streetlights on the street. She saw one of them turn to look at the others, and almost like he was telepathic they all turned to face him before turning around and heading back out of the alley._

_Buffy just watched them leave, her mouth hanging open. She looked around, wondering if there was a scary clown behind her and she had just now found out that vampires have aversions to creepy Pennywise clowns. But no. Just her._

_But it wasn't the 'oh noes, it's the Slayer, let's run away' sort of walking away. This was 'you aren't in the plan, get away' sort of walking away. They disappeared, the sound of car doors opening and closing before a soft engine started the only thing telling her they had been there in the first place._

_"Okay," she said slowly, turning back to the dumpster. "What the hell was that about?"_

_When she rounded the corner, Dean was gone._


	14. Chapter Fourteen - September 2015

**Chapter Fourteen - September 2015**

_hell opened up and put on a sale_   
_gather ‘round and haggle_   
_for hard cash, we will lie and deceive_   
_even our masters don’t know the webs we weave_

We all like mysteries, don’t we? A little bit of whodunit and where'd-he-go and what-the-hell-is-happening…

No. I didn't. You wouldn't. Nobody would because not only was he playing mystery/elusive guy all over again, there were now really freakishly large vampires in the mix and I didn’t understand why, how or what the hell they were doing. Seriously, is your first instinct to sneak around like that? No. It’s to maim, kill, drink, blah blah. This was organized. Which is bad. Learn this lesson: bad.

No mix-y. Bad mix-y.

The weirdness of the night wasn’t over yet either.

*

_Buffy walked home, trailing her fingers along the building, her eyes glued to the ground. She hadn’t found Dean after he had disappeared after those vamps. She had even headed back out to the street to see if she could get a trace on the car they had gotten into but it was like it had never been there. Not that she knew anything about tracking cars or what to even look for._

_She tracked the supernatural stuff, not the human objects. And despite her best efforts, she hadn’t run into any other vampires that night. She felt like her skin was humming with the need to expend some energy._

_Dean._

_Buffy licked her lips, remembering the way his hand had pressed against them. How warm and rough it had been. So rough but he touched so gently; Buffy shivered, remembering the way his fingers had dragged down her back or the way they gripped her hip or ran up her ribs or…_

_“Okay, brain, emergency brake. Get a grip,” Buffy whispered to herself, heading into the alley directly across from her apartment and MacLaren’s. It was nearing three in the morning. Ted would be in bed, Marshall and Lily would be in bed, Robin at home and Barney somewhere that wasn’t there. The street was quiet and Buffy looked up, noting the windows were dark in her apartment. She stopped, taking a deep breath._

_She didn’t want to go back up there. She wasn’t tired. She was way too wired from running into Dean, pretending to care more about the mystery vampires that were the size of cars and wandering around aimlessly, hoping for something to punch. But nothing had come about and now she was just a live wire, waiting to snap. She wasn’t going to sleep tonight if she went up there._

_But dawn was a few hours away and one thing she had learned about New York was that the vamps were a little more cautious around here, took their time to make sure they got back to their nests before the sun decorated the sky. All precautious and whatever…_

_“Stupid vampires,” Buffy mumbled under her breath before heading towards the apartment. She shoved her hand into her pocket to fish her keys out, absently thanking the trash gods that that day had been trash day for their street because the alley smelt surprisingly cleaner than normal - or maybe that was just her brain categorizing different levels of smells in alleys since she spent so much more time in them - when she heard the scuff of a boot on the ground._

_Buffy turned in time, her arm raised to block the arm ready to grab her and she gripped the forearm, yanking the person closer to shove her fist into their nose. They were anticipating her move though because they grabbed her fist in a tight hand and pulled her into the circle of their arms. A passing car’s headlights illuminated Dean’s face and she gasped._

_One cheekbone had a large cut across the bone, the wound angry and red and he had a large bruise that was already turning the color of the sky on his temple. Buffy tried to pull her fist out of where he held it but he didn’t relent and she growled at him._

_“What the hell happened to you?” she asked, angling her head to get a better look but the shadows weren’t on her side._

_“Come on,” Dean said in reply, yanking her back towards the other end of the alley, away from the apartment and she followed along, closing her fingers around his where he held her hand. He pulled her to the other side of a dumpster where he unceremoniously dropped her hand. She cringed, the light better on this side from a closer streetlamp, at the glare he shot her. “This is because of your stupid ass.”_

_“Excuse me?”_

_“When I tell you to stay, you goddamn stay,” Dean bit out, his voice low and harsh and Buffy frowned at the tone, not liking the way it made her insides curdle like rotten milk. He was mad. Ridiculously mad. And she had no idea why._

_“What…” Buffy shook her head, trying to catch up when it clicked. The vampires. “Those vampires? What happened? They did the disappear thing and poofed away, I couldn’t even find them. What-”_

_“Yeah,” Dean nodded. “They sure did. Because they were looking for you. And they found you. I couldn’t exactly let them live, could I?”_

_“Okay, I’m not following-”_

_“I don’t have time to coddle you right now,” Dean snapped, the anger in his words like a knife abrading her skin and Buffy flinched against the wall, staring at him. She had never seen him this angry. Ever. He was beyond livid, he was enraged. “Here’s the deal. You’re gonna stop slaying, you’re gonna lay low, you’re gonna pretend that there is no such thing as vampires or demons or whatever. Got it?”_

_Buffy shook her head. “What? No, that’s ridiculous.”_

_“Just do what I’m saying. It’s not that fucking hard, is it?” Dean asked. He ran his hands through his hair. “Just… lay low. It’s simple.”_

_“Dean, what is going on?”_

_“No,” he said, cutting her off with a slash of his hand in the air. Buffy jerked back at the bark. “Just… do as I say, okay? Please. I’m only asking nicely once.”_

_“And I’m asking you to explain what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t understand.”_

_“And you won’t understand because if I tell you what’s going on, you’re gonna get your head all filled up with whatever stupid fancy shit Slayers do and get yourself killed.” Dean took a deep breath, closing his eyes. They opened slowly, trained on her face and Buffy’s heart skipped a beat at the intensity in them. He wasn’t kidding. “Please.”_

_Buffy wanted to nod her head and say yes, of course, sure but she couldn’t. He was asking something that she wasn’t sure she could do anymore and for reasons he wasn’t really explaining - at all. And the mystery part of Dean Winchester was no longer fun, especially when he came to town, shouting demands at her that made zero sense. Buffy moved to grab his hand but he moved out of her space, stepping back a few paces. She didn’t follow._

_“Do me this favor and just… stay low. Don’t do anything, okay?” he asked, his tone softening. Buffy stared at him, not responding. He clenched his jaw before rubbing a hand over his face. “Just do what I’m asking. Please.”_

_Buffy frowned at him._

_And then he turned and walked away._

_Buffy didn’t hesitate a second. Like hell she was just going to let him roll into town, order her around and then disappear without even an explanation. Buffy was after him and she grabbed his arm, stopping him, ready to turn him around and make him tell her what was going on. But Dean had other ideas._

_Dean yanked his arm out of her hands and shoved her away, his eyes dark and foreboding as Buffy stumbled back._

_“What the hell was that for?” Buffy snapped, her ire rising to the occasion as she stalked back after him. Dean didn’t respond. Instead he just clenched his teeth hard enough to shatter all his teeth as Buffy got back up in his face, her own glare hard enough to rival his. He grabbed her hand before she could touch him again and the grip he held on her wrist actually hurt. Buffy probably should have said something along the lines of, “Ow. That hurts. Stop. Let go.”_

_But she didn’t. She reacted like a Slayer, twisting her wrist out of his grip and punching him in the face._

_Buffy waited for the yelling. She waited for the anger and the harsh words. But they didn’t come. Instead he reeled around and punched her right back. Buffy’s head snapped to the side and she gasped at the burst of pain right where his knuckles connected with her cheekbone. Buffy turned to stare at him, her mouth gaped in surprise, her hand on her cheek. He was just glaring at her._

_“I’m not fucking joking around with you,” he ground out._

_She wanted to reply with something witty and quippy and angry and honest and everything else all rolled into one but she didn’t. He hit her. He punched her. Buffy’s lips pulled back in a snarl as she launched herself at him. And then it was just a blur of fists as she railed on him and he whaled on her. The fight lasted less than a few minutes as she caught him in the gut with her fist just as his elbow landed in the center of her face. A cry fell from her lips as pain erupted inside her head and she stumbled back, giving him the advantage._

_Dean shoved her against the wall, trapping her against the brick with his body as she tried to find her focus. And then everything stopped. Buffy’s lungs ached with the need for more air as Dean’s body enclosed around hers, his arms holding her steady against the wall. The ache in her head slowly dissipated as they stared at each other and she became acutely aware of how close he was, how hard he was and how much she wanted-_

_He kissed her. Hard. Rough. A cry fell from Buffy’s throat, getting lost against his lips as his mouth mauled hers, pressing her harder into the wall. Buffy gripped his shoulders, winding her arms around his neck as his hands found her hips, shoving her up against the wall. Buffy lifted a leg, wrapping it around him and Dean ripped his lips away from hers, lifting her up in his arms enough for her to wrap her legs around him and then she found his lips again, this time hers biting at him, kissing him hard, her teeth clashing with his as their tongues dueled. He slammed her back up against the wall and Buffy gasped in pain but didn’t pull back. It felt good._

_It felt right._

_The anger that he had brought with him rivaled her own although she wasn’t sure where hers came from. All that mattered was that Dean was there again, he was back in her arms, and she would be damned if she was going to let him disappear again. Buffy’s nails dug into his scalp, yanking his hair to get him closer to her and she felt one of his hands holding her up while the other found her hip, shoving her skirt up to her hip._

_Everything happened so fast. Buffy’s nails hurt from gripping his shoulder so hard as she snaked her other hand between them down to his jeans. She found the button, found the zipper and shoved it down as he groaned against her lips, kissing her so hard she would bruise._

_Buffy wasn’t sure what this was. It wasn’t anything like what had happened back at the motel. It wasn’t like anything she had experienced before. This was different. Even with Angel, with Spike… this had something different tinged on it and it felt so right - so good, so perfect having him here with her again. The anger of the moment wasn’t derived from something bad. It wasn’t coming from a place of darkness, like she had experienced so often before… this was light. This was passion like she had never felt before and suddenly everything in her world slipped right into place, right where it was meant to be._

_Buffy’s hand shoved his jeans down, shoved his boxers down enough for his hard member to pop free and Dean took care of the rest. He found her panties, shoving them out of the way as he angled himself at her entrance._

_They pulled back at the same time, their eyes finding each other’s; lips aching, faces bruised… their eyes met and for a split second, everything in the world stopped for them as he thrust into her, shoving her up against the wall with such force she felt like her ribs would be bruised._

_Cries of pleasure were swallowed up in kisses as they made love against the brick wall. That they were in the alley didn’t matter. That they were right next to her apartment, right where Ted was sleeping, didn’t even enter her mind. She didn’t care. She had him, in her arms, the… right one, the right person. Every single touch ignited a fire inside her body and she felt him responding in kind as she held him within her arms and legs._

_When she came, she broke the kiss, pressing her forehead against his as a strangled cry fell from her lips. His breath was hot on her face as he pumped inside her faster, his fingers gripping her tightly. Buffy felt another burn starting, another pleasure-filled explosion waiting to kindle hotter when he came inside her, his hips jerking painfully against hers before he slouched against her, using the wall to keep from falling onto the dirty ground._

_A long moment passed, his face pressed into her neck, her fingers playing with his hair before he lifted her off of him and he slid out. She found her feet, her legs feeling wilted as she gripped the brick behind her. She saw his hands were shaking as he fixed his pants, re-clasping his jeans. He was staring at the ground._

_Buffy pushed her skirt down, looking at him before glancing around the alley before looking back at him._

_Neither spoke._

_She didn’t have words to describe what had just happened. It had just… happened. Her skin tingled where had touched her. Her face ached where he had hit her._

_But it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t bad and that… that was bad._

_Buffy bit her lip, feeling the tears coming to the surface. God, what was she doing? Biting her lip harder, Buffy closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them to find him watching her. She gave him a watery smile, unable to stop herself from stepping towards him. She wasn’t sure if he had the same idea but he met her, his arms winding around her and pulling her into a hug. A sob fell from her lips as he held her. She felt his hand running across her hair, his lips pressing against her head as she stifled the sobs aching to come up._

_She hated it that he seemed to get it. She had no words for what was happening between them, no idea how to define it or handle it, and he got it. And she kind of hated him for that._

_A hot tear fell from her eye as he pulled back. His hand found her cheek and Buffy really wanted to turn away, not let him see her falling apart in front of him all over again but she didn’t. He lifted her face to look at him and she bit her lip to keep the sobs in. His face blurred as more tears came up - tears for him, tears for her, tears for… others. Because this… this was…_

_He kissed her again, gently. Buffy moaned in his mouth, arching up to get more, hugging him closer as he pulled her closer. The world did that stopping thing again as nothing else mattered but the other. But this kiss was soft, easy… it said everything that literally could not be said and it only made Buffy want to cry harder as everything she had worked so hard to keep in the darkness, keep buried, came bursting to the surface._

_When Dean pulled back, he stared down at her, his brow furrowed. Buffy met his gaze, reading everything in his and letting him see everything in hers. She glanced down at his lips before looking back at him, but this time he let her go, stepping out of her arms. She let him._

_An eternity passed between them as Buffy’s mind whirled through everything that she was feeling when he glanced over at her apartment, his face suddenly shrouded and dark. And all of the emotions in her chest died a violent death as he glanced back at her, his face resolved. She opened her mouth to say something, anything… but nothing came out._

_He reached up, scratching at his brow before looking at the ground. Then he nodded, glancing at her one more time… and then he turned and walked away._

_No words were needed. Nothing was needed._

_She watched him leave, watched him disappear all over again…_

_Buffy finally felt herself moving towards her apartment. She crossed the street and instead of going upstairs, she sat down on the concrete steps, hugging herself before finally letting go._

_She cried._

_The people passing her on the street didn’t bother her. She was just another girl in New York City with a broken heart._

*

I was a mess. I was in a mess. I was the mess. Everything was a mess.

Was that a moment of epiphany for me? Ha! Is it ever that easy? Come on, pay attention to the story of Buffy’s bad decisions.

Anyway, I didn’t see Dean again after that. He did his disappear act and I… went along with it, I guess. What could I do? I was a coward. I didn’t know what I wanted and everything that he represented scared the absolute crap out of me. That was something that took me a long time to realize; he was everything that was challenging and hard in life and I had finally built something that was easy. Ted was easy. Work was easy. Friends were easy.

But it wasn’t enough…

And the guy didn’t answer his phone, he didn’t even bother telling me what the hell he was up to and what the hell was up with those freakishly-sized vamps or why the absolute hell he insisted on telling me I couldn’t slay.

Like I would actually listen to him without an explanation. I tried for about a week, though, heeding his warning, mostly out of honoring what had happened between us but then I couldn’t help myself. It was like a drug; there was something in me that just pulled me out into the night, made my hands and feet ache with the need to find something and kill it.

So I went back to the routine. It was actually a pretty good record I was getting to - slaying every night. My senses were getting honed, my tracking was getting better. A few more nests, a few more treks.

I didn’t sleep much but that was okay. I was slaying, I was helping… and it kept me from thinking about things that I didn’t want to think about. It got easier as time went on, as things usually do.

You know the saying: time heals all wounds or whatever. It would take more than a few months to heal the gashes I had conjured up with my stupid feelings but they were dulling.

And that was good.


	15. Chapter Fifteen - January 2016

**Chapter Fifteen - January 2016 (four months later)**

_and you know it’s getting stronger  
can’t make ‘em last much longer  
turn to stone_

_Buffy shoved her hand deeper into its pocket, the other snug in Ted’s hand, as they wound through the foot traffic on their way back from dinner. It had been a nice night. Full of the calm things that made being in a couple comfortable… like talking about Ted’s shoelaces and describing the lighting for these abstract pieces that had come in the other night._

_They had gone to her favorite Chinese dive, where the placed smelled like an old dishrag but they had the best food her tongue had ever tasted. She loved it there, even if you had to sit in the dishrag to get to the gold. Totally worth it. Downside was it was pretty far from the apartment and even further downside they had thought walking would be a great idea._

_Not. It was freezing._

*

That was one thing I never, ever got used to: the snow. Seriously, it felt like it snowed every other day, even during the summer, compared to good ol’ Sunnydale. I’m a California girl through and through so I suffered the consequences more than you can even grasp when it came to the cold.

But, moving on…

*

_Buffy’s face was shoved into the lapels of her jacket and the thin scarf she was wearing, seriously contemplating not giving a crap about how much a cab would cost and just grabbing one when someone dodged out of a building, almost colliding with them._

_“Whoa, buddy,” Ted said. “Careful there.”_

_“Sorry ‘bout that,” the man grumbled before looking up just as Buffy did at the sound of his voice. Her eyes widened, the chill of the night air biting at her eyeballs, the chilly air feeling harsh as she took a deep breath, trying to rival the rush of emotions flooding her. And then she saw him._

_Buffy inhaled sharply. Dean’s face was a gigantic bruise. There was no moon in the sky that night to help aid the streetlights but she could see enough that he had gotten worked over and badly. She opened her mouth to say something before snapping it shut, remembering Ted was there. She bit her tongue, staring at him as hard as she could, wanting to know what the hell he had been up to, who had done this to him, and why in the world had he not freaking called her when he got into town…_

_It didn’t help that he was staring at her like he hadn’t seen her in years and she felt a stab of something she couldn’t identify at the clear relief in his face as he looked at her. It only made the entire thing curioser._

_“Wow, are you okay?” Ted asked, cocking his head before furrowing his brow, looking like he was confused._

_“Yeah, no, I’m good. Just… boxing. Classes,” he replied, shrugging, glancing behind him before surveying the street quickly. Buffy watched his every move, every muscle in her body tightening as she tried to not speak. One eye was badly bruised and she could see where his jaw had gotten whaled on. There was a cut over one brow and he was standing like it hurt to even be vertical._

_“Well, those are some boxing classes. Hey, you’re that guy, that artist guy,” Ted said, pulling his jacket in closer as he smiled at Dean. Buffy felt him pulling on her hand, trying to pull her closer before she realized she was squeezing the ever loving crap out of it. She immediately released it, forcing herself to relax._

_“Yeah, hey,” she said in a shaky voice. “Dean.”_

_“Dean, right. How you been?”_

_“Oh. You know,” Dean said, looking away, his façade slipping into place, shrugging as he placed something in a brown bag into his inner pocket. Buffy glanced at where he had come out of and she frowned. “Just… same old, same old art biz, you know?”_

_“Were you actually shopping in there?” Ted asked, glancing up at the wooden sign plastered into the grey brick of the building, ‘Hura’s Shop of Occult.’ “Man, those places give me the heeby-jeebies, ever since this girl in college tried to curse me.”_

_The look lasted about five seconds as Ted talked. Buffy furrowed her brow, staring at the bag before looking back up at him and he spared her a split second glance before looking back to Ted, an impatient smile on his face as Ted continued on._

_“But it wasn’t Lily, although that would have been hilarious. She went through this freaky chick goth thing and had the whole black hair and black eyes.” Buffy didn’t miss the way Dean’s eyes narrowed. Suddenly she was definitely not feeling the cold. Something was up. Way up. Like Everest up. “I don’t know if you remember Lily now-“_

_“Yeah, yeah, the chick who paints for dogs. I remember her,” Dean said with a false smile before nodding at them. Things would have gone just fine, letting everything slide by if he hadn’t glanced over his other shoulder, acting like a twitchy drug addict. Buffy gasped. Dean had a fresh vampire bite mark that was still red and raw, although the bleeding had stopped. But it was still fresh enough as in it could have happened a few hours ago._

_“Dean,” Buffy said, dropping Ted’s hand and stepping towards him. She lifted her hand to touch him, make sure it was real, get a better look and make sure he was okay, not caring what this looked like, not caring for one second that she was probably giving everything away that she had worked pretty darn hard at keeping buried, but Dean stopped her, stepping back with a dark look. The bruises decorating his face, the fresh vampire mark, made him look a little mad. Like insane mad at the look he was giving her. She stopped in her tracks, staring at him. “What happened?”_

_“Nothing,” he said quickly, shaking his head minutely before shooting Ted a smile. “Good seeing you, man.”_

_“Yeah, you too,” she heard Ted reply but all she saw was Dean brushing past her - again - and disappearing. She felt her heart lurch after him and she almost ran after him before remembering where she was. The wild question of ‘who cares?’ flew through her head but it died a quick death of consciousness two seconds later._

_“Dean!” she said and he stopped, pausing before glancing over his shoulder. She stared hard at him, her breath fogging the air in front of her face. “Call the gallery sometime. We… might have some open spots soon. Really soon.”_

_The message was clear and she saw he got it. “Yeah. Maybe.”_

_And then he was gone. Buffy didn’t realize she was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, watching after him, until Ted touched her shoulder and she jumped._

_“Whoa, sorry,” he said. He glanced after Dean before staring at her and she put on a smile for him. “I thought you guys were booked a few months out.”_

_“Oh, we are,” Buffy said nodding, turning back after Dean but there was nothing. She shook her head. “We keep emergency slots open for real talent. You know, the guys who really impressed. That’s all.”_

_Ted nodded slowly. “Huh. Okay. Cool. I guess Marinna's lucky to have you working overtime like this.”_

_Buffy nodded. “Yeah. Just… gotta snatch ‘em up when you find ‘em, I guess.”_

*

Let's all collectively roll our eyes. Because I suck.

But I didn't care. I only cared about him.

Thank all the gods in the sky I heard from him the next night because I almost blew a gasket waiting for him to contact me while at the same time berating myself until I was blue in the face for expecting anything. The guy would rupture his spleen and let his liver take a dance across the sidewalk before he ever actually asked for help. Especially from me.

In the mean time, I pretty much earned the blue ribbon for keeping my lives so separated that I could bungee jump into the giant hole between them and magically bounce up on the other side without any consequences, really lending to the fact that I was getting too good at convincing myself nothing was wrong with what I was doing.

I'm an idiot. What can I say? Not that you really have a moral compass to judge me on right now and for that, I appreciate you and your predicament. Thank you.

*

_Buffy’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She ignored the hollow hope in her chest, knowing that she was being foolish - hello, she had already tried reaching out to the big stupid jerk and he had completely ignored her. What were the odds a mixed signal from the night before - all in front of Ted nonetheless - would actually work?_

_It was a text message from an unknown number._

_“Crappy coffee place?”_

_Buffy almost smiled, the wave of relief and joy at seeing the message, knowing instantly who it was and wanting to laugh at his choice in words. The little coffee shop on 58th was actually pretty good if you were okay with bad French accents and actual French people - one of which cursed at you in French if you asked what he said._

_It was weird that he chose that place since the one time she had been there with him, all he did was complain, but she didn’t care two licks._

_"Marinna again?" Ted asked, looking to glance at her phone and Buffy twisted it away, nodding._

_"Yeah. Just reminding me about that, uh, research I said I would do. I gotta go." Buffy pushed her barely touched glass of beer towards the center of the table. "But hey, barely touched beer to the first taker."_

_"Are you going upstairs?" Ted asked, moving to slide out of the booth but Buffy paused, stopping him. "I'll go up with you."_

_"No," Buffy said, touching his shoulder in the universal motion of 'stay and don't follow me' before sliding out and slipping her jacket on. "I am in dire need of a caffeine boost, that beer made me a little sleepy."_

_"You barely touched it," he reminded her and she looked at the beer before looking back at Ted, for the first time noticing that she was the entire attention of the table. As in all conversation ceased and desisted and they were all watching her. She felt a stab of unease in her gut but she didn't stop._

_"Didn't sleep well last night. I'll see you later, okay?" With a quick peck on the lips, Buffy gave the rest of the table a dismissive smile before bounding towards the door and up the stairs._

*

I can already tell you without you seeing it but I was losing ground with the group. Fast. But I didn't care, my priorities were somewhere else, which should have told me something at the time but it just felt easier to not recognize it and pretend like things were fine in both the oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookie Buffy lives.

Anyway, back to the story.

I never made it to the coffee shop.


	16. Chapter Sixteen - January 2016

**Chapter Sixteen - January 2016**

_you can knock at any door_   
_but wherever you go, you know they’ve been there before_   
_well winners can lose and things can get strained_   
_but whatever you change, you know the dogs remain_

_Buffy was turning the corner, quickly heading north to the shop in the chilly winter air when someone yanked her into a dark doorway._

_"It's me," Dean immediately whispered and a flood of warmth and concern filled Buffy's chest but he didn’t give her a second to respond. He grabbed her hand and pulled her inside the building._

_"We really gotta stop meeting like this," Buffy said quietly as he shut the door behind them and kept moving. He didn't answer. The doorway entered into a set of stairs going down into the basement of the building and he tugged her behind him, nearly yanking her arm out of its socket. "Okay, you have to slow down and explain what’s happening because dragging me into a basement is so not sexy. Or cool, I meant cool."_

_"Shh," he said over his shoulder, glancing into rooms as he pulled her behind him. The rooms looked old and abandoned although Buffy knew that this building wasn't abandoned. The smell of musty mold and cold air that hadn't been touched by the sun in years infiltrated her nose. As they went, Dean reached into some of the rooms and closed the doors through the hallway behind him before entering one on the left. Buffy was silent as he shut that door and moved to a large desk sitting in the corner._

_"Okay, seriously, what’s going on?" she asked, looking around. It was an old studio that was the size of a closet. A large spider web decorated the corner and she shivered, feeling a shot of unease as the legs of the desk screeched against the floor. She felt like she should stop him and make him explain but this was Dean - she had learned a long time ago to trust him… ironic considering the last time he had burst into town but at least this time he was sticking around. That didn’t mean he wasn’t acting weird. First the serious vamp-caused wounds and now this? "What's happening?"_

_"Just help me move this thing," he said, shoving it out of the way. Buffy pushed it against the wall and Dean leaned down, his finger hooking into a hole in the floorboard that turned into a hidden door as he pulled it up. "Get in."_

_"Dean-"_

_"Just get in," he snapped, grabbing her arm and shoving her toward the hole in the ground._

_Buffy grabbed his jacket, stilling his movements. "Okay, I get something is up, but I'm not the kinda girl that just jumps into holes without an explanation here. What's going on?"_

_Dean rolled his eyes, glancing to the door. Buffy followed his gaze but nothing had moved or been disturbed. "Well, if you had just listened last time, I wouldn’t need to explain anything. But I’ll explain in a minute," he griped, and for the first time Buffy noticed he was whispering. She frowned. "Just get your ass in there."_

_Buffy stared at him for a split second, her mind rocketing back to the night in the alley, before looking into the blackness that awaited her. He rolled his eyes and she glared at him before jumping in. The inky blackness was a deceiving little monkey as she immediately landed on the soft dirt ground._

_The dirt was soft and loose on top and a bunch of debris littered the ground. She wondered what the place had ever been used for because it was super creepy when she heard Dean's boots scraping the wood above her and she moved just in time for him to jump down as well. He grabbed a foot of the desk and moved it back over them as much as he could before he pulled the loose floorboards back over them._

_Darkness descended like nobody's business, the hush of nothingness making Buffy's ears feel full._

_"Dean?"_

_"Shh."_

_"You can't just shh me here-"_

_Dean's hand slapped over her mouth again, cutting off her words, his fingers digging into her cheeks as he pulled her against his body. She slid across the ground, his mouth finding her ear. "Shut up for five goddamn seconds, Buffy."_

_And she did, a strange fear and trepidation joining the unease in her chest as he held her._

_His grip on her face loosened but didn't move and she leaned into him for balance - right, for balance - when she heard the far away sound of footsteps. She stopped breathing, looking up to the floorboards that were too dark to see even though they were five inches away from her face. The steps got closer, echoing, and she felt Dean's hold on her tighten, which only served to freak her out more._

_Okay, what was going on?_

_She let out a long quiet breathe and Dean pulled his hand away._

_“What the hell is-”_

_Dean’s hand found her arm in the darkness and squeezed as hard as he could and she gritted her teeth, turning to glare at the spot where he probably was. But she shut up._

_She could hear doors opening and closing above them, getting closer to their position and her heart started racing as her thoughts fled to places she really didn't want to go about exactly who was up there looking for them. Was Dean in trouble with the police? FBI, CIA, CSI? Alright, that didn’t make sense. Oh god, he was probably in trouble with some mob guy and he'd probably bet them a few beers over a game of poker or pool or something equally stupid and he'd probably threatened them or thrown out his gun or-_

_"Vampire," Dean whispered into her ear and a whole new level of fear hit her. Vampire? They were hiding from a vampire? Her mind immediately jumped back to the last time she had seen him and those vamps that had disappeared on her. She frowned, biting her tongue as she listened to the vamp above them moving around a few rooms down._

_Dean seemed to be on a roll sensing what she was thinking because his arm slipped around her waist and he squeezed her where he held her against him. Despite the fact that they were hiding in the floorboards from a vampire and he was really playing at her nerves by not explaining anything, her heart leapt at the contact. She kept her mouth shut._

_After an eternity of paying more attention to how hard Dean's body was than the thickened silence - harder than she remembered although human memory is notorious for being utter crap, or so she remembered talking with Angel about it and she was babbling inside her own mind, great - she heard the door to the room above them opening. They both stiffened._

_The vampire entered, walking around for a moment. Buffy closed her eyes when a shower of dust fell from the floorboards and just like someone plugging in a set of drums to her veins, her heart roared to life when she heard the desk being moved. It was probably the situation being what it was that shot fear through her body like a boomerang because suddenly she really, really didn't want the vampire to find them._

_If Dean was hiding from a vampire, it was serious. Dean. Hiding from a vampire. Dean hiding from anything was mindboggling and she didn’t like the way it made her insides twist even worse as the desk moved once more._

_But the vamp just moved the desk around, likely staring at the marks that had been there when Dean originally moved it. The vampire shifted the desk a few times before wandering around, opening the draw to something else, lifting something, shuffling things. The entire time Buffy felt like she was on the precipice of fear, waiting for the vampire to realize he could probably just smell them right below him._

_Or hear her heartbeat which was stampeding like a thunder horse through her veins, loud enough to drown out the footsteps in the white noise of her blood rushing through her ears._

_On one hand, Buffy really just wanted to stand up and open the floor and have at the vamp. What they were they hiding for? If there was ever a time to take on a scary vamp that had even Dean running, it was now, she was primed way beyond anything before. On the other hand, it was Dean who had pulled her down here. And probably for good reason. She trusted him._

_And if Dean was scared, she probably had reason to be scared too._

_A long few seconds passed before they finally heard the vampire moving back to the door. Dean’s entire body went lax against her as it shut and then footsteps could be heard walking further through the building. It seemed to have lost interest in any of the other rooms as it made its way back to the steps leading back up to the street._

_“You okay?” Dean asked and Buffy whirled towards his voice, wishing he could see the accusing look she was sending him._

_“Seriously, am I okay? Did you jump on the crack train, what the hell kind of question is that? How about you explain to me-”_

_Suddenly there were heavy footsteps slamming into the floorboards in the room above and the sound of the desk above them being hauled up and against the wall - the sound was shockingly loud as the heavy desk shattered, the sound blasting through the faux silence. And then a hand shot straight through the floor, grabbing Dean by the jacket and ripping him back up through floorboards._

_“Dean!” Buffy shouted after him, scrambling to follow. She didn’t move fast enough though as she heard Dean shouting something obscene before the sound of his body cracking against the wall interrupted him. “Dean, no!”_

_Buffy shoved the broken wood out of the way, crawling through the hole. She felt the wood splintering through her skin as the biggest vampire she had ever seen found Dean where he laid on the floor and hauled him back up by the lapels of his jacket. Buffy was out and on her feet when the vamp threw Dean’s ragdoll body across the room again. His body smashed into the opposite wall, drywall showering around him as he hit a two-by-four._

_“How about you play with someone your own size?” Buffy got out before she threw herself at the vamp. He was tall - whoa-way-tall judging by the fact he was barely grazing the ceiling and his shoulders were three times the width of hers. He was the definition of a formidable foe except for one thing: he had absolutely zero interest in her._

_The vampire growled, but not at her, and sidestepped her, swatting the back of her head with enough force to send her crashing to the floor. Buffy’s forehead slammed into the wood and she groaned, forcing herself back to her feet. The vampire was back to Dean, lifting him up once more. His fangs were bared and he looked like he was about to rip Dean’s throat out._

_A dozen desperate thoughts splashed inside Buffy’s mind as she let go, letting her body do the talking for her. She was a blur, moving so quickly the vampire barely had a second to lick his pearly whites as she slammed her fists into his kidneys with enough force to make him drop Dean. She knew she was hearing him groan on the floor but she didn’t care past the fact that he was alive as everything focused on the vampire._

_The vampire that had been about to kill Dean._

_With a shout, Buffy hammered her fists into him. She felt his body shots, felt him trying to move her without hurting her - which was a whole new level of weird and adding to the weirdness of the vamps from before - but she didn’t let him. She felt the heat of her body cracking against the broken remnants of the desk when he shoved her away but she came back._

_The fight didn’t last long as the vampire they had heard leaving the room was back and he grabbed her from behind, wrapping her up in a bear hug and lifting her off her feet._

_“No!” Buffy shouted, trying to wiggle out of his arms but he tightened them around her and she saw little black spots dancing across her vision. “No, Dean!”_

_“Buffy, get out of here,” she heard him mumbling against the floor and were she not about to lose consciousness she would have rolled her eyes at him. Instead she kicked her legs, trying to catch the vamp behind her but he seemed to be bigger than the first and he leaned them both back._

_“No!” Buffy shouted again as the vampire she had been working over started shouting something at the one holding her. It sounded like guttural Italian, coming out in short angry bursts before fading and starting all over again. He was gesturing at her as she struggled, shouting even louder. She felt the rumble of the vampire responding through his chest where he held her pressed and she tried to shove her head back to catch his face. He was too goddamn big though._

_They were now fighting, the one in front of her gesturing wildly as the one behind her maintained his hold. With every word he said, he seemed to gesture with her body instead of his hands and she felt her brain turning into soup the more he moved her around. She continued to struggle but he felt like he could hold her all night. And tomorrow and probably well into next week._

_“Dean!” she shouted, but he looked like he was out. “Dean!”_

_The vampire in front of her shouted something at her that was probably something like ‘shut up, noisy, mousy woman’ before moving in to grab her from the burly one holding her._

_Buffy shouted in alarm, aiming her legs up to kick at him before he could reach her when Dean was up and on his feet. Her eyes widened as the fella holding her shouted a warning but Dean was already there with his stake buried in the original attacker’s back._

_The vampire holding her shouted in dismay as his buddy burst into dust and he dropped her unceremoniously to the ground, losing all interest in her all over again as he lurched after Dean. Despite the obvious rule of not being able to hurt her, the vampire had no problem kicking her in the back with his mountain-sized steel-toed boots as he stepped over her and the air was sucked out of her lungs with a vacuum from the hit._

_She turned in time to see him grabbing Dean by the throat and she shouted his name again._

_“Buffy, go!” he managed and as Buffy rolled to her feet, she saw enough to see he had a whole mess of more abrasions on his face and he blood leaking from his mouth like a grotesque fountain. “Now!”_

_She ignored him, grabbing the thick leather of the vampire’s jacket and yanking as hard as she could. It was like trying to move a tank because the vampire barely moved. Instead, he turned and swatted her across the head, the back of his palm slamming into her cheek and she twisted, slamming headfirst into a wall._

_She heard Dean shouting her name and a growl and something else crashing into the floor and she opened her eyes to see the vampire picking Dean up again and shaking him. The sharp throbbing at her temples was heavy enough to make her head feel like a boulder as she crawled towards the vamp and kicked him in his knee._

_The next moment happened in a blur. The vampire shouted in pain, dropping Dean like a bag of oranges and falling to the ground. His upper half landed on Buffy’s legs and she shoved him off as hard as she could, trying to lift him off but he seemed to enjoy the new position because the vampire clamped his hands around her thighs, the noise coming from his mouth sounding like a boar chuckling._

_“That’s not even scary-sounding,” Buffy managed, sitting up and digging her nails into the vamp’s hands but then Dean was there with the stake. He jammed it into the vampire’s back but he moved at the last second, and the stake missed its target._

_Another roar filled the room as the vampire shoved his elbow into Dean’s face, making him fly back, and Buffy took advantage of the distraction, grabbing the stake from the thick muscle of the vampire’s back and shoving it home._

_The vampire’s roar died as his voice box became dust and Buffy landed on her elbows in the vampire remains, turning her head so she wasn’t breathing in vampire residue. She felt it sticking to her sweaty forehead as she forced her eyes open, looking around for Dean. He wasn’t moving._

_“Dean?” she said, the soft sound of her voice a comparable shock to the sound of the fighting and she held her breath, waiting for more vampires to come rushing into the room. But there were none._

_Buffy breathed a sigh of relief before lifting herself up and crawling to where Dean laid. His eyes were closed, his face a bloody mess. One eye was so swollen, he wouldn’t be able to open his eye if he tried and there was another heavy bite on the other side of his neck where one had gotten him without her seeing._

_She felt like her chest plate cracked open at the sight._

_“Oh god,” she whispered. She touched the less-swollen side of his face with a shaking hand. “Dean, wake up.”_

_He groaned, turning into her touch, his good eye popping open. She offered him a lame smile and he breathed out a sigh of what sounded an awful lot like relief as he shoved himself up, wincing the entire way. Buffy tried to help him but he shoved her hands out of the way. Instead he grabbed her face as he sat up, his dusty and bloody fingers leaving wet smudges on her cheeks._

_“Are you okay?” he asked and Buffy’s breath hitched as his fingers ran over her face, checking for wounds or checking to see if she was alive or just because he was probably really out of it. Either way she didn’t care. It felt good. She closed her eyes for a second._

_“Am I okay?” she asked, her voice cracking. She grabbed his jacket, pulling him closer. “You should grab a mirror.”_

_“What, the beat-to-shit homeless man look isn’t for you?” Dean cracked and he shot her a crooked smile and Buffy laughed, but the sound was hollow. He took a deep breath as they stared at each other. She couldn’t read what she saw on his face, the smile melting away as more time passed, and Buffy reached up, pressing her hand to his good cheek._

_“Are you okay?” she asked._

_“I don’t really care,” Dean breathed, pulling her closer and pressing his lips to her forehead. “You’re okay, that’s all that matters.”_

_A ghost smile appeared on Buffy’s lips and she leaned into the kiss before pulling back and looking at him._

_The minute light coming from the underground window was enough. His wounds were worse than she had thought. “I care.”_

_“Well, you’re dumb,” he said with a smile._

_Buffy rolled her eyes at him. “Dean, you should go to a-”_

_“Come here,” he interrupted. Dean wrapped his arms around her and yanked her as close as he could where they sat on the floor. Buffy gladly went along, shoving her face into his shoulder as he dug his into her neck, taking a deep breath, inhaling her. Buffy let out a shaky breath, letting herself relax in his arms; it felt good, it felt right._

_It always felt good when he held her, when she held him. Like this was her place. Like there was nothing else in the world but this spot._

_Buffy pulled back, lifting her hand to trace his face again before running her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes at the sensation, shaking his head at her like he wanted her to stop but didn’t want her to at the same time. Buffy didn’t think as she leaned in, pressing her lips to his softly. He returned it for a second before pulling back, wiping his mouth._

_“Not exactly the sexy kind of kissing when your mouth is full of blood,” he joked, his voice heavy and Buffy gripped his head in her hands, pulling him closer as she pressed her lips to his cheek, his temple, his forehead. She felt him sighing and leaning into her touch, his arms winding around her back._

_“That’s nice,” he mumbled._

_“Good,” Buffy said with a smile, pulling back to look at him where she held him gently in her hands. “I think we should get you to a hospital.”_

_“Absolutely not,” he immediately responded. He pulled out of her arms, pushing her back as well and shoved himself to his feet. Buffy was up on hers in an instant as he swayed and almost did a headfirst dive into the wall he had been thrown into but she grabbed him until he was steady. “See, I’m good.”_

_“Yeah, you’re great,” Buffy replied. “So great you’re in the running for the Moron of the Year award. I’m taking you to the hospital.”_

_“I said no, goddamn it,” Dean replied, letting her wind her arm around his ribs but he stopped her from moving him towards the door. “Stop, stop, we need to talk for a second.”_

_“No, we need to go to the hospital because it sounds like you can’t even breathe.”_

_“Stop being so melodramatic. I said I’m fine, I’m fine.” Dean moved so he was leaning against the wall and he pushed her away, waving her off. Buffy rolled her eyes in exasperation._

_“Dean-”_

_“So explain to me what part of ‘cool your slaying jets’ was so hard to understand?” Dean asked, wincing as he shifted his shoulder but his good eye never left hers. She frowned, shaking her head at the absurdity of his statement but he didn’t let her continue. “Those vamps?” he said, pointing to the dust on the floor, “Are just the beginning. What do you think would have happened if they had been allowed to run back to Mommy with news that they found you?”_

_“Found me? What are you talking about?”_

_“All this crazy robot slaying you’ve been doing lately is like putting a freaking bulls-eye on your forehead.”_

_“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. A bulls-eye for who?”_

_Dean exhaled loudly, sounding more annoyed than in pain despite his wincing every time he moved. “That demon chick I was tracking a while ago? The one who I couldn’t get a bead on because she was being a slimy little bitch? She was part of that nest that we go rid of upstate. She was the reason vampires are gathering, she’s got some freaky mojo on her that amps these vamps up.” Dean waved at the dust piles again. “Those weren’t normal fucking vampires, those were scary mofos._

_“And that’s not all that’s going on. She’s got a little trick up her sleeve, something I got out of a vamp a few months back, about what her endgame is. She wants to open the gates of Hell again.”_

_“You mean… the ones that Sam closed?”_

_Dean nodded. “Give the girl a prize, Alex.” Buffy glared at him. “Closing the gates meant that no damn demons could get out anymore, which has made exorcisms a damn treat because they could never come back. But she found a way.”_

_“That involves me.”_

_“Ding ding ding,” Dean said with a sad-looking smirk on his swollen face. “The ritual she’s got requires the blood of the original Slayer.”_

_Buffy took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before shaking her head. “You’re joking.”_

_“I wish I was.”_

_“My blood is… jeez, you’d think putting my Slayer boots back on would mean something good. Instead it means I’ll help end the world. Again.”_

_“Exactly. And here your stupid ass is, basically telling the world there is a Slayer in New York. With big bright pink letters and a gigantic arrow pointing right at you.”_

_“You don’t have to be a dick about it.”_

_“Apparently I do,” Dean replied, chuckling. “I told you to knock it off and what do you do? You get crazier.”_

_“Well excuse me for needing a distraction, Dean,” Buffy snapped. “You think it’s easy, after everything that happened…” With us. Between us. To us. Buffy swallowed, looking away from Dean’s knowing gaze. She chuckled. “And I know it’s because of me, because I’m an idiot, and I can’t just sit around doing nothing because… because I just can’t.”_

_“Find a new hobby,” Dean replied, his voice rough and Buffy shook her head at him._

_“Yeah,” Buffy said with a hollow laugh. “Okay. Sure.”_

_“I’m serious. You think it’s easy coming back here, hearing the stories of some crazed blonde cleaning the streets up here and knowing what that means? You think it’s easy coming back here, knowing I can’t have you, that I have to just sit back and watch you live your life?” Buffy stared at him, biting the inside of her lip as he continued as she felt the hot burn of tears in the back of her throat. “I come back here because I can’t stand the thought of you being dead. So I stake the vamps, I keep them off your back because you are so oblivious to them, it’s actually shocking. The minute demon bitch finds out you’re the one she’s looking for, you’re toast.”_

_There were about fifteen other questions she should have asked in that moment that she didn’t. “You’ve been checking up on me?”_

_Dean opened his mouth, his eyes darkening like he was about to bite her head off, but the words didn’t come. Instead, he leaned back against the wall. A pregnant pause filled the room before he spoke, “You made your choice, Buffy.”_

_Buffy felt like the building was collapsing around her as he finally said the words that had been dancing around her mind for months. That neither had been able to say last time; that were the large, evil elephant in the room that seemed to get bigger every time. A tear escaped._

_“You made your choice to stay…” With him. “Here.” Dean shook his head. “I can’t just come around and pretend like everything’s okay. I’m not really that guy.” Buffy made herself nod even though she wasn’t actually hearing him. “I don’t like coming back here, worrying like hell that I’m going to find your head on a spike because you’re being too fucking dumb to care.”_

_“I care,” Buffy said, her voice cracking. She wasn’t sure if she was talking about herself or something else…_

_“No, I don’t think you do. I don’t think you give two rat’s asses about what happens to you.” Dean shook his head as he studied her and Buffy felt like she was the size of the dust circling in the air between them. “You do a great job playing the part, Buffy, but you’ve got a death wish in you. You buried it pretty damn good for a while but now it’s just… out there.”_

_Buffy moved to say something but she had nothing as Spike’s words echoed in her head. It made the nausea in her stomach blossom. “I don’t have a death wish.”_

_“Yeah, well, the way you’re living now has you booked for dying in an alley somewhere, bloody and alone. And I can’t live with that. I won’t.”_

_Buffy swallowed the boulder sitting in her throat. “Dean, please-”_

_“Just…” Dean inhaled slowly, staring at the floor. “Stay off the streets. That’s all I’m asking. Because every time I have to come back here, it gets harder.” Buffy bit back the sob in the back of her throat, another tear slipping from her eye. “I can’t be around you, knowing you’re…” Dean shook his head. “Whatever. So just do me this favor, huh?” He looked up, catching her eye, and this time she couldn’t stop the sob that escaped. “Don’t die.”_

_His eyes drilled into hers, nailing her to one spot as she just stared back. She didn’t want to nod. She didn’t want to agree. He was right. Just like Spike had been right. She craved the darkness like it was part of her soul. Hadn’t that been the lesson so long ago? She was a Slayer and part of being a Slayer was the darkness that came along with it. And she craved it. She had taken that small window, that small escape hatch and had lived outside it for a while, but then it came back. And he was right._

_And she didn’t want him to not come back. She wanted him to stay. She wanted him to keep coming back, she wanted him… she just… wanted him. Buffy took a deep breath, wiping her eyes and tried to turn away but turned to look at him again, trying to make sense of the mess in her head._

_Dean looked back at her and he looked… sad._

_“Please, Buffy. Just stop being an idiot.”_

_Buffy couldn’t stop the cold laugh that fell from her lips. She still didn’t say anything though - because what could she say? She wanted so badly to agree with him, that she did have a darkness and that he complimented that darkness perfectly, more than anyone in her life had before. He was everything that she was - with and without the darkness - but she couldn’t. She couldn’t open her mouth and say the words. Because she was… here. In New York. With this life. And she didn’t know why but she couldn’t just… let it go._

_After a moment, he pushed off the wall and limped towards the door. She watched him, digging her teeth painfully into her tongue, holding her arms as hard as she could as he opened the door and paused._

_He turned his head to speak over his shoulder but seemed to change his mind. She saw the ghost of a smirk on his lips before he stepped into the hallway and left._

_Buffy didn’t remember moving, didn’t remember going after him. She didn’t remember grabbing him and turning him back to face her. All she remembered was the way his arms wrapped around her as she launched herself into his arms, blindly pressing her lips to his in a desperate act that she didn’t know how to name._

_He was disappearing again. Because of her._

_The kiss was bloody and tangy, needy and awful at the same time as she tried to put into it everything she couldn’t say._

_She felt Dean’s arms around her, pressing her to his chest as he returned the kiss before breaking it off abruptly and stepping out of her arms, holding her at arm’s length. She couldn’t see his face in the darkness of the hallway as he squeezed her arms gently before letting her go._

_He turned and limped away and Buffy just stood there, again, watching him leave._

*

I don’t know. Don’t ask.

At this point, every single time I even thought about Dean, I went through an emotional wringer.

I still don’t know what happened during that time to make me do this to myself. I felt this strange loyalty to the life I had created in New York, like something I couldn’t just drop at the simple request of someone who happened to mean a lot to me. It wasn’t that simple.

Alright, it was that simple but it wasn’t at the same time.

So Dean did what he said. He left. And he didn’t come back. Time passed and once again, time did its dulling of the feelings thing, to the point where I started to look back on what had happened that night, on what he had said and what he had warned me of, with an almost alarming amount of numbness.

You can probably guess where this is going.

At first, I did as he said. He asked me to pull back on the slaying and so I did. For him. Because he had asked me to and so I stopped for a while.

A while.

Of course, along with the dulling of the feelings came the dulling of the memory. And as I made myself go to bed at a decent time over and over again, as I made myself spend more time with Ted and the gang and as I made myself do more at work… I started wondering what the big deal was.

I was the Slayer. I could take care of myself, I didn’t need some human guy looking over my shoulder every time I went out slaying.

Let the demon chick come and play.

So I started hunting again.

I started small, kept it minimal and kept it low key. But then I heard about a larger nest and so I took care of it. And then I heard about a gang of vamps that was making a snack bar out of people. I took care of them. And I told myself it was about saving people and making sure they lived and blah blah blah…

But really it was me saying, “I can take care of myself and I sure as hell do not have a death wish.”

I was angry. I started slaying angry…

It got me in trouble.


	17. Chapter Seventeen - February 2016

**Chapter Seventeen - February 2016 (three weeks later)**

_and you know it’s getting stronger  
it can’t last very much longer  
turn to stone_

_A chill danced down her spine. Buffy paused where she was pushing through the hanging clothes, concentrating on the feeling. It felt like someone was watching her. She looked up, glancing around nonchalantly in the tiny boutique before looking behind her, outside the picture window. The night sky made it look like the glass was a mirror and all she saw was herself._

_Buffy still strained to look into the night but all she saw were the passing pedestrians and nothing else._

_She felt the feeling trickle away after a moment and she shook her head at herself, looking back to the rack of clothes. The jeans hanging there were $259. Buffy sighed wistfully, pulling them out and staring at them before putting them back on the rack._

_“You know that’s what credit cards are for, right?” Lily asked, sidling up and grabbing the jeans._

_“I’m trying to curb that urge, Lil. Remember the major credit card bill I got last month? The one that almost made me cry?” Buffy asked jokingly, grabbing the jeans back to look at them. No. Bad. Very bad. She hung them back up._

_“These would get you the Ted drooly face in no time.”_

_“If I need jeans to get the Ted drooly face, we have a problem,” Buffy replied with a smile._

_“You know, they should have a rule out there for people who shop for therapy. I think the credit card companies are just taking advantage of the fact that new shoes really turn a frown upside down.”_

_“The bastards,” Buffy replied, pulling on Lily’s arm to see what goodies she found. “Oh, that has Marshall-approval all over it.”_

_They stayed in the shop for another thirty minutes before heading back to the apartment. Lily hooked her arm in Buffy’s as they walked down the street when the feeling returned. Buffy felt her Slayer switch turning on inside, like a pendulum in her brain swinging into the on position as the hairs on the back of her neck raised in alarm._

_The burning in the middle of her back was definitely someone staring at her._

_Waiting for the walk signal, Buffy glanced over her shoulder, quickly scanning the growing crowd of people behind her, waiting to cross the street. None were watching her. A few noticed her and looked to see what she was looking at but it was nothing out of the ordinary._

_Nothing._

_Buffy frowned, turning back to face Lily as she talked about the process of telling Marshall about the monthly credit card bills. At first the talking was easy, but the closer they got to the apartment, the harder it got to concentrate on Lily’s voice. Suddenly the cars racing by were louder than normal. She heard snippets of conversation in the groups they passed or the tiny clicks of someone’s heels or the swish of someone’s skirt. The flap of a newspaper on the ground and the rustle of trash in the gutters. Her senses flew into overtime mode as the sensation of someone watching her grew stronger and she shifted her shoulders, glancing over her shoulder again._

_She saw nothing and nobody._

_That only made the sensation worse._

_“Hey, let’s stop in here,” Buffy said, grabbing Lily’s hand and yanking her into the doorway of a tourist-shop-slash-pawnshop, effectively shielding them from the majority of the street._

_“Uh, okay,” Lily said, glancing up at the sign. But Buffy didn’t go in. Instead she looked around the corner of the doorjamb, scanning the street to see if someone else had stopped. It all felt like a really bad L.A. detective movie. And Buffy still didn’t see anything. She frowned before feeling Lily peek around her. “What are you doing, is someone following us? Ooh, is it an ex-boyfriend?”_

_“I wish,” Buffy mumbled under her breath, turning to shoot Lily a smile. “I don’t know. I just felt something weird I guess.”_

_“Always trust your instincts,” Lily said with an approving nod of her head. “That’s what my self-defense teacher said along with saying I had the best punch in the class.”_

_“Oh I remember the punching,” Buffy replied with a laugh. “Like the guy who tried to grab your purse.”_

_“That was a Coach purse. Do not touch my Coach purse.”_

_When they stepped back out into the street, the feeling was gone. It had to be her imagination, she was imagining things. Probably some subconscious reminder of the non-promise she had made to stay off the streets slaying-wise to the person who will not have a name anymore._

_Buffy felt a little pinprick right in the center of her heart as she thought about him but she couldn’t bring herself to even think his name… she had been back in the slaying game for well over a month now and she had been doing a pretty good job of keeping a low face. She couldn’t just not slay - he had to understand that. And it had been weeks, several long and seriously dragging weeks, since she had gotten a good slay in and she’d been doing some good in the meantime._

_So she couldn’t just… stop._

_Her mind was just playing tricks on her; that was all it was._

*

If you’ve been paying attention to the Buffy pattern in this story so far, this is another part in a book where you note in the margins: “Girl is crazy and stupid and has ‘asking for it’ written on her forehead.”

Yep, that was me.

*

**March 2016 (two weeks later)**

_The vampire gripped the front of her shirt and lifted her off the ground. Buffy’s legs kicked wildly as the woman growled at her, shaking her in the air before throwing her back. Buffy landed in a rough somersault, landing on the back of her neck awkwardly before rolling to her feet._

_The vamp was on her like white on rice, plowing into her on the ground and rolling with her as they both fought for dominance. Buffy felt nails on her cheek scraping on her skin before a hand found a bunch of her hair and yanked. Buffy shouted in pain, reciprocating._

_When girls play dirty, you play dirty right back. Life lesson #283._

_Buffy usually liked Central Park at night. It was quiet and deceiving and definitely not filled to the brim with drug dealers trying to mug you like everyone in the world seemed to think. It was the closest thing she had to reminding her of home, of the lush landscape of Sunnydale and the surrounding woods in California._

_Except right now she really didn’t like it as she rolled over on a tree root with her new vampire friend._

_The hard root rolling into her spine shocked Buffy, letting the vampire get a foothold on her. She grabbed Buffy’s arms, slamming them into the ground above her head and leaning into to dig her teeth into her throat. If Buffy had a dime for every time a vampire tried this little trick…_

_The stench of the vampire’s breath almost rivaled the freshly cut grass they were laying on as Buffy bucked her hips, forcing the vamp forward just as Buffy rammed her forehead into her nose. The vampire reared back with a howl of pain and Buffy wiggled her wrists free and slammed a double fisted punch into the vamp’s nose again, making her yelp even louder._

_Buffy shoved her off, rolling to her feet and wincing from where the root had gotten her back. The vampire took her time getting to her feet and Buffy watched with pleasure the well of blood pouring from the vamp’s nostrils._

_“Nice fountain work,” Buffy said, stretching her back to get rid of the new kink. She reached into the back of her pants and grabbed a stake. “How nice of me to install that for free, huh?”_

_“I’ll kill you,” the woman spat at her, her voice laced with a heavy Spanish accent and Buffy nodded slowly._

_“Right, okay, good luck with that. You know, another thing, you should work on your accent. It’s really thick, I really can’t understand a word you’re saying.”_

_“Bitch,” the vampire responded._

_Buffy gestured her approval. “See, that word I got. It’s all about the enunciation.”_

_The vampire growled at her before moving in for the attack. Buffy met her with fervor, adrenaline rocketing through her body as they traded blows. The fight was going well. She was winning, she could feel it in the sluggish ways the vampire started responding, her limbs losing their quick little slashy movements. And then the opening was there. Buffy grabbed the vampire’s thick black hair in her hands and yanked her head back, exposing her chest for the pretty piece of wood that had the vampire's name - if she knew her name - written all over it._

_It never happened._

_Suddenly Buffy’s body was not her body as she froze, almost like someone had turned her blood into quicksand, and then she was up in the air, the vamp dropping to the ground before Buffy felt herself being thrown. Literally thrown away like the pieces of littered paper that used the streets as their dancing posts. A pained shout fell from her lips when she collided with a thick-trunked tree before falling to the ground like a box of broken sticks._

_Buffy groaned, taking a deep breath which caused a short painful stab to hit her lungs. Great, that was a rib. She heard the shuffle of feet on the grass from where she thought she had been standing a moment ago._

_So the trashy vamp had the whole mind thing working for her?_

_Well, wasn’t that just a bucket load of fun she didn’t want to have._

_“Alright. That’s cheating, you know,” Buffy said with a groan, crawling to her hands and knees._

_“You are impressive.”_

_Buffy whipped her head up at the new voice with the lilty Italian accent and paused at what met her._

_She was surrounded. And by surrounded she meant there was a circle of ten larger-than-her-by-a-lot vampires on all sides. They were the walking and sulking twins to the two that had followed her and Dean a few months ago. The thought made her stomach deflate a little, remembering how hard they had been to kill. And that had been with help._

_They were standing in a perfect circle around her, stock still and all staring at her. And these were definitely not normal vampires - they looked like they ate entire goats every other hour and their eyes were red Skittles instead of the boring ol' yellow which wasn't good. The last vampire she'd seen sporting those had been The Master and hey, that had ended with her death. Great memories. Buffy saw her Spanish flower vampire looked just as bewildered as she did at the sight._

_The situation had just turned from 'light, fluffy vampire slayage' to 'sock-full of rocks in the face slayage.'_

_"Uh, hi," Buffy said._

_“Kill this one,” the talker said and Buffy watched as one of the giants stepped forward and ripped the head off the vampire she had been about to stake, not giving the female vampire a second to respond or plead for her life. Buffy stopped breathing at the show of violence, her eyes widening as the head exploded in his hands and he clapped his hands to get rid of the residue._

_“Okay,” Buffy said slowly, pushing herself to her feet. She looked around. “Wow. Guess my party invite got lost in the mail. Not that anyone mails anything anymore, but still feeling a little left out.” A few of the vampires growled their displeasure and she looked around again, noting only a sea of glowing red eyes looking at her like she was the party favor…_

_Not good._

_“And so quippy. I like it.”_

_The speaker - a slender woman with long red hair - stepped forward so she was at the center of the mass of vampires. Buffy watched her, frowning before the recognition hit her. And that was quickly followed by a bucket of dry ice dousing her chest. She knew her. Had seen her. It was the woman from the alley… a few years back, the one that had thrown Dean from the building and set her vampy lackeys on._

_"It's a delight to meet you."_

_"I can't really say the same since I didn't catch your name."_

_"Names are trivial up here," the woman replied. "Although you may call me Nera if you are so inclined. And you are Buffy Summers, the Original Slayer."_

_"Well, original would imply that I'm a lot older than I am, so I think you've got the wrong girl."_

_"No. I'm afraid you are the wrong one in this case. You are the longest living Slayer, the original who has not died, the one who launched them all. I've been looking for you for a long time."_

_Dean’s words tumbled through her head about this woman… about finding her, about her blood being the key to opening the gates of Hell again…_

_Crap. Crap crap crap crap… so much crap, she was drowning in crap._

_"Guess it's your lucky night then," Buffy replied, her chest tightening painfully as she looked around again. Instinct kicked in as she surveilled the group, looking for any glimpse of a weakness, any chance for her to get away. Anything. But they were tight. And they weren't many but they definitely made up for it in size._

_Worry gnawed at her spinal cord like a needy puppy._

_"Unfortunately for your cause we had to go through many young Slayers who fit your description. There are many of you now since your friend's spell."_

_Buffy's mouth slowly dried as she stared at the woman, not liking one bit how much she seemed to know about her. Or that she had killed Slayers - innocent young girls who just happened to be small and blonde…_

_She was a really big stupid idiot. Dean had been right. She hadn’t even imagined for one second that Dean was right or how much was being played here. She had thought it was some little lowly woman who happened to have a demon up in her and was playing with the big kids but would lose - living in a world full of Slayers and tramping around, looking for one, was pretty much asking for a death warrant on your head… but she had been wrong._

_And that probably meant she was dead. Super dead. Without a chance to come back because really, how many get out of jail free cards did one girl get? Which, oddly enough made it feel like a butcher knife through her chest plate._

_She didn't want to die._

_She really didn't want to die this time._

_Buffy steeled herself, clenching her jaw, looking around again._

_She had no choice but to run. She had not a chance in hell against all these vamps if they were anything like the two from before. A ghostly pain danced across the surface of her from the memory of the hits from those two - and they hadn't even been focusing on her. She remembered Dean's words about the vamps just finding her and reporting back to Mommy… she had zero confidence that these ones would just leave her to her playthings and let her kill this lovely Nera lady without interruption._

_In a perfect, sunshiny world… in which she would know how to kill her at all because she was pretty sure a quick little stabby stabby wouldn’t do much for her. Not to mention the innocent woman's shell._

_This was one supernatural lesson she seemed to have skipped._

_Trepidation gathered at her spine with the worry now and she felt a nauseous tug of fear._

_“Your reputation precedes you,” the woman continued, walking towards her slowly and Buffy watched her warily. “You’re quite a loosy goosy little girl.”_

_“Hey, I do what I can,” Buffy replied, her eyes roving over the crowd again. “Gotta keep the tongues wagging.”_

_“Of course,” the woman replied, amusement coloring her tone, before blinking slowly. When she opened them, they were pitch black and Buffy’s breath hitched at the sight. “You have made the chase quite enticing, and the payoff even more delicious. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort looking for you, Buffy Anne Summers, and I do not think you’ll want to miss this.”_

_“Well,” Buffy replied, shrugging, putting on an easy smile. “You really don’t know score a lot of points with the stalking bit in knowing me all that well, so-”_

_She didn’t wait for a response. Buffy launched herself to her left, throwing herself at the vampires that were barely covering her from behind as they all seemed more focused on protecting Nera than her. Buffy quickly aimed for a nose with her elbow, which was supposed to be followed by a fist into one of the others’ faces and then a kick into a shin and then bam, freedom to run and run and run…_

_Except she’d forgotten one thing._

_The strange invisible force was back on her and Buffy’s feet left the ground, hurling her back to the spot by the tree with so much strength, she felt her neck crack when she hit the bark again. But she wasn’t allowed to fall to the ground this time. Buffy slumped painfully against the unseen hold, trying to breathe and think and plan but failing on all accounts as whatever it was pushed her into the tree; bits of bark were digging into her back, making a deep breath feel impossible which had Buffy gasping as she tried to push off the tree without success._

_Nera seemed entirely unconcerned with Buffy’s predicament._

_“You’re right about one thing,” Nera continued causally and Buffy looked up from her perch against the tree as she walked towards her. Her hand was out, the source behind the invisible whatever that was holding her still. The thin hand connected to the thin wrist was deceiving as the strength Buffy exerted to move even an inch did absolutely nothing. “I do not know you very well and I do not care to. I only require one thing from you.”_

_“Right,” Buffy said breathlessly. “My blood. I’m afraid I have to shut that part of the ritual down, I’m pretty fond of my blood. Inside. Where it belongs.”_

_“You don’t really have a choice in the matter, my dear girl. I've found you," Nera said with a toothy smile, eerie in combination with her black eyes. "And I'm not letting you go. Bring the bowl.”_

_Buffy pushed against the invisible bonds holding her but nothing happened as three vampires brought a large and really ugly stone bowl covered in archaic etchings and placed it before her. Buffy struggled, but no matter how much force she used, she didn’t move._

_A wild streak of fear and horror filled her as the vampires moved in closer around her and the woman stepped up further, a maniacal light in her black eyes, making her look deranged._

_And she had to be imagining things because whenever Nera the Crazy Lady clenched her fingers - a really gross and inappropriate come hither gesture considering the situation - Buffy felt something squeezing in around her. Like she was a pimple and the woman’s long fingernails were trying to pop her._

_“Do you know that you have chosen the perfect locale, Buffy Summers?” the woman continued, and Buffy felt the force pushing her further into the tree and Buffy felt tears rise unbidden and she clenched her jaw._

_“My mom always said I had talent,” Buffy gasped around the pain of the woman trying to drill her through the trunk. "Nice to see my life potential realized."_

_The woman ignored her, glancing over her shoulder. “There is an ancient gate underneath the Gapstow Bridge.” Buffy’s eyes flew to the bridge in the distance. She saw a random person crossing it slowly, pausing before continuing on… A completely random person, completely unaware of what was happening a couple dozen yards away._

_Buffy felt her face draining of blood at the thought of a Hellmouth - or gate or whatever the hell it was that was going to happen - opening up right there. In the middle of Manhattan. Swallowing that person and so many more._

_A sudden rending shock of guilt shattered inside Buffy’s head as the gravity of what was happening hit her. How twisted was it that she had risked everything in her life to close one Hellmouth only to lend a hand in opening yet another… She couldn’t run, she couldn’t fight._

_What had she done?_

_"Lift her up," Nera intoned, dropping her hand and the invisible bonds left abruptly, leaving Buffy to land painfully hard on her knees. She thought absently how wonderful it would be to be grossed out that she had landed in a soggy patch of the overwatered grass, her jeans sinking into. But she didn't get a chance to react to anything when Freaky Giant #1's hand wrapped around her throat and lifted her from the ground. Buffy hands found the meaty Hulk one wrapped around her throat, her nails digging into the flesh as he easily lifted her from the ground. Buffy felt the grip of gravity with the vampire switched hands, the gigantic claw of a hand finding the back of her neck and he moved to hold her up over the bowl._

_The fingers dug into her neck and she felt a precarious slip into unconsciousness when his fingers pressed against her jugular before shifting. She wondered how she must look - a tiny little woman next to a literal Hulk vampire. His hand practically wrapped all the way around her throat._

_Buffy kicked out her legs to catch his knee but he just extended his arm and she couldn't even graze him._

_"Okay, what kind of steroid Mickey's did you slip these guys?" Buffy gasped, her fingers hooking into his for leverage but they wouldn't budge. Buffy squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to pry the fingers from her throat but nothing happened._

_"They are of my essence," Nera replied, chuckling. "Aren't they gorgeous? A rare spell, only applicable when certain events come to unfold. Such as the gates of Hell closing. Such as reopening them. The army that comes out will need bodies."_

_"I should go shopping with you, you got a good deal on these guys."_

_Nera shook her head, chuckling. "You're amusing responses will not forestall this, Buffy Summers."_

_"I'm a one-name kinda person, you can just call me Buffy," Buffy replied with a gasp, wondering how feasible it would be to twist to get a good lock on the thing's arm to break the hold when the moment was broken by a loud scuffle coming from the edge of the group._

_Nera turned nonchalantly to see what was happening._

_“Ah, excellent, my darlings,” the woman intoned, the smile in her voice evident. Buffy looked up as the group parted, a pair of burly vamps entering the circle, dragging something behind them. When they dropped the package on the ground at the woman’s feet, Buffy felt her intestines turn into liquid fear, her struggles stopping as she just dangled in the air limply._

_Dean._

_His hands were tied behind his back, a black cloth between his teeth, the edges tied behind his head. His eyes lighted on Buffy and they widened as he took in her position. Buffy could only stare at him, wondering where he'd come from, how he'd gotten there, how they'd found him…_

_“It is my favorite Winchester,” Nera said, leaning down and pinching Dean’s cheek. Dean yanked his head away, his glare promising death if she touched him again. The woman just laughed. He was covered in bruises and cuts, his face the poster of vampire abuse._

_“Dean,” Buffy whispered, dismay in her voice, and the woman heard._

_“Yes, your Dean,” Nera replied, shooting Buffy a pleased smile before gesturing to Dean. “Pick him up.”_

_If by pick him up, she meant ‘yank him until his shoulder dislocated,’ the vampires did a fine job. Buffy winced before flinching when the vampire tightened his hold on her. She felt her fingers aching in response to the hold she kept on the hand around her throat. She felt her arms starting to shake from the exertion of holding her body weight up just enough so the hand wouldn't crush her neck starting to take its toll - Slayer muscles did not make Slayer fingers._

_The vampire holding her growled, shaking her when she dug her nails into his hand again at Dean’s groan of pain when a vampire kicked his legs out, knocking him to his knees._

_"Dean," she whispered again, forcing her eyes to stay open as fear at the situation started clogging her throat. This being her own gig, her own problem, was an entirely different story than having him here. Everything got fuzzy, confusing, and it was no longer so easy to think about anything but the fingers closed around her neck or the sight of Dean's abuse as the woman talked to him._

_“You think you’re so clever, Winchester,” Nera said, leaning over to rub her finger against his chin again and Dean jerked his head back, growling something into the cloth that Buffy couldn’t hear. She willed him to look in her direction again, give her a sign, show her he was okay - although the varying levels of okay to be right then and there were few and far between… But he wouldn’t look at her. “You’ve done a fine job keeping my boys busy when it concerns your precious little whore Slayer. Quite the regular stalking little boy I would expect after all these years, not having anyone to burden anymore… but let me tell you something.”_

_Dean’s face was twisted in disgust as he leaned away from the woman’s mouth but she grabbed his chin, stilling him._

_“You led us straight to her.”_

_Buffy’s heart clamored to a standstill at the words and she watched the realization on Dean’s face as he processed them. After everything - after his warnings and the fighting he had done to keep them, and himself, away from her - it was as simple as this… His eyes flew to Buffy’s for a split second - the realization on his face, the regret, the fear that she was telling the truth - before facing the woman again._

_The demon just smirked._

_“Oh yes. You thought you were being so clever, but you just couldn’t help yourself, could you? Following her everywhere she went, protecting her.” Buffy frowned at the words, remembering the sting of someone watching her - it had been Dean? - staring at him but he wouldn’t look at her. “The pathetic little angel on her shoulder.” Nera laughed, shaking her head. “So ironic for you.”_

_Dean growled something along the lines of, “Fuck you.”_

_“You two make quite the pair, my darling, although she’s no Sam, is she?” Dean’s eyes darkened as he glared at her but she just chucked him on the chin. Dean made a move towards her but one of the vampires grabbed the back of his neck, yanking him back and holding him in place._

_“I'm still going to kill you, Winchester, for the years of trouble you caused. The fun part is there is no bounty on your head any longer, you're a free little kitten to be skinned and played with as I please. But to thank you," she said, turning back to face Buffy. Her eyes had switched back to a normal human being’s and now she was just a deranged woman with a high rating of psychopath. Buffy watched, nausea filing her to the brim, as they bled back to black. She had seen a lot of things but that… that was freaky. “You will die after her, getting the honor of watching her die.”_

_Dean yelled something against the cloth, his eyes flying to Buffy before going back to the woman but the vampires dragged him away._

_“It is time, my sons,” the woman said, her voice growing louder without her having to raise her voice._

_“I think you need a few party tips,” Buffy said, swallowing the bitter chalky taste of fear, digging her nails harder into the vampire's hand. She gritted her teeth when he tightened his hold again and she felt the pressure on her jugular. “Holding people against their will does not make a good hostess. How about you let him go and let us girls talk, huh?”_

_The woman smirked, looking merely amused as she nodded at the giant holding her._

_Buffy twisted her body, feeling her skin rend against the vampire's hand on the back of her neck, the friction turning into lava traveling across the surface of her skin, as she wrapped her arm around his forearm, ready to break his hold and climb his body until she reached something breakable but the vampire was quicker. His giant fist slammed into her face, dazing her. Buffy's body went slack for a split second as she blinked from the pain._

_His hand moved in a vicious slash and she saw the blur from the corner of her eye._


	18. Chapter Eighteen - March 2016

**Chapter Eighteen - March 2016**

  
_one world, it’s a battleground_   
_one world, and we will smash it down_   
_one world… one world…_   


It was one of those moments again where everything moves in slow motion. I saw the hand coming and I remember thinking, "I'm going to die."

I was over my head and the vampires knew, creepy Nera knew and Dean knew it. I mean, I couldn’t even touch this vamp.

Don't smirk.

*

_The claws on his hand slid into her like butter. Literally. Buffy gasped at the heavy pressure, feeling strangely numb as the vampire pushed his hand up further inside her, ripping holes in her insides. She absently heard a dull shout and a parade of growls as it felt like he wiggled his fingers._

_It was the strangest sensation - like someone filling her insides with air and she was going to pop but there was no pain…_

_Buffy opened her mouth, white noise filling her ears to the brim, trying to look down to see what was happening because there was no pain, which seemed strange, because she knew something was happening… a trickle of blood leaked over her lip, dripping down onto her shirt as she glimpsed the meathead's hand buried inside her stomach._

_Oh god._

_More blood gurgled up her throat, making her mouth feel hot and sticky. It tasted like she was sucking on a mouthful of pennies as Buffy’s fingernails ached from where they dug into the vampire’s fingers. She thought she felt her legs moving and kicking but she wasn’t sure._

_And just as quickly as it went in, the hand ripped out of her. Buffy felt more of her skin tearing as pain suddenly seared through her body like a hot poker. It lasted for a split instant before falling away like a blown out flame as she stared at the blood-coated fingers making a fist in front of her. She saw chunks of something inside the clawed nails and Buffy was sure she would have felt nausea if her stomach hadn't just been speared._

_Buffy coughed, her neck muscles cording against the hold, more blood coming up. She felt the hot creep of blood dripping down her abdomen, into the material of her jeans and down her legs… right into the bowl._

_“I hope Gregor is making things comfortable for you, Slayer,” Nera said before closing her eyes, holding her hand up once again. Buffy’s face twisted as she felt the blood dribbling down the wound she couldn’t feel. That was probably a bad thing because where was all this blood coming from if her brain was telling her this wasn’t that bad?_

_And then there was pain. Buffy’s eyes flew open as her insides twisted violently, wrenching more blood from inside her, a waterfall of heat down her front and into the bowl she was hovering over. Buffy clenched her teeth, letting out a dry cry of pain as Nera twisted her wrist, making it feel like someone was trying to claw their way out of her abdomen. The holes from the meathead’s hand felt like they were tearing and Buffy opened her mouth to scream but it was cut off by the vampire squeezing the back of her neck until she couldn’t even breathe._

_A heavy voice started filling her ears, speaking in a language she couldn’t hear or concentrate on._

_Buffy felt both too hot and way too cold as she felt the strangest sucking sensation, like all her blood was being pulled towards the wound in her stomach, like her blood was being milked. Another cry ripped from Buffy’s throat, echoed by someone else’s cry, all drowned out by the weird Latin words coming from Nera as she twisted her wrist further, twisting Buffy tighter, like she was a sponge and every last drop of her essence was needed for the spell._

_How was it this easy, was all she could think… how was it this easy that she had been minding her own business, doing her own thing just a moment ago, slaying, saving the world… to this. Being all end-of-the-worldy, the end-all. Suddenly being the final shove in the final piece of shattering everything that had been worked towards._

_Maybe that was the answer, maybe that had been the answer all along._

_She didn’t belong in the world, times two. She should be dead, maybe this was just the universe righting a wrong. The world was a safer place without her, for sure, all she did was bring misery despite trying… but not like this. Not with her blood being the key to the end of the world…_

_Again._

_Stupid blood._

_Tears cascaded down Buffy’s cheeks as her body started numbing, the pain started dulling. Her fingers grew lax on the grip she held on the hand around her throat before her arms just dropped and she hung limply above the quick-filling bowl. She heard someone yelling over the Latin words, followed by shouts of glee and a few growls and then that started fading as well. Hundreds of thoughts bombarded her…_

_But she only saw one person._

_And then a vicious scream tore through the night as the pain abruptly stopped and the hand holding her up dropped her into the bowl of her own blood._

*

Okay, this part is definitely like the movies…

*

_Buffy felt like she was taking a bath, floating on her back in something as innocuous as bathwater. Except this water was all wrong. It was too thick, too hot. It just felt wrong, surrounding her and trying to pull her under, too heavy to be water…._

_Someone yelling forced her back to the moment._

_Oh god, she was swimming in her own blood._

_Buffy forced her eyes open, ignoring the coppery scent surrounding her, filling her. The tree that had been hugging her not so long ago swayed above her, but there was no wind, she realized, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Buffy moved, pushing herself up to her elbows and grasped the edge of the bowl that was suddenly resembling a really macabre kiddie pool, not feeling the tug on her stomach, not feeling what should have been such horrifying pain she should be knocked out… she’d had worse._

_And now she was covered in her own blood, another trickle leaking from her mouth to join the other red blood cells as she took in the scene. The moonlight was bathing everything as she watched someone she had never seen before grab a knife from the woman’s shoulder._

_A long trail of orange light burst from the wound when the knife left and the woman opened her mouth in a scream of fury, pain, joy, who knew before backhanding the man she had never met before._

_Buffy watched in amazement as the guy fell to the ground before quickly rolling to his feet, turning and running._

_“Hey,” she wanted to say after him, but she had no voice._

_She couldn’t hear anything anymore as she pulled herself over the rim of the bowl, falling bonelessly to the ground in a wet squishy pile as vampires swarmed to follow the newcomer, seemingly forgetting about her as the others surrounded the woman like gross little vampire children._

_She didn’t want to think about how much blood she had lost as she tried to use her arms to sit up but it was like asking a wet noodle to grow some backbone and get up and walk away._

_Buffy closed her eyes, willing some strength into her bones, but it only seemed to make her more aware of how very little she had._

_When she opened her eyes again, she rolled to her side, ready to get up and do something only to see things had changed significantly. She had just closed her eyes for a second…_

_She kind of felt like she was dreaming. Everything was getting fuzzy._

_For one, that guy was back, running around like a skinny little mouse and dodging vampires like they were dodgeballs and he was a dodgeball champion. Second, the woman was on the ground, her lifeless eyes facing Buffy, the knife from before sticking out of her back._

_Where was Dean?_

_The thought alone caused a whip of energy to seize her body and Buffy forced herself onto her hands and knees, the scene starting to come back to her. She absently noticed that most of the vampires had taken off the minute their leader had gone down and that they had actually shrunken in size…_

_Weird. Creepy Nera had literally been the steroid dealer and now that she was gone, so was their fix._

_Or was she just imagining these things?_

_And where the hell was Dean?_

_An image of him lying face down on the ground somewhere, dead, his own eyes glassy and lifeless, struck a fire in Buffy’s stomach and she forced herself to her feet. She felt curiously numb as she held a hand to her stomach, remembering that she had just been gutted and lost a lot of blood, that her abdomen should be hurting because she had felt fingers dancing in there. She couldn’t tell if she was still bleeding and she looked down to check only to see she was covered in her blood. And everything was hot to the touch, like her skin was too cold._

_“Dean,” she mouthed, her voice gone. She took a step, pushing a vampire out of the way when he came tumbling towards her, lurching past him._

_She didn’t get far._

_Suddenly someone wrapped beefcake arms around her from behind, pulling her back. Her feet lost the ground and she felt her arms moving in a defensive gesture but she was too sluggish, not fast enough as one hand gripped her face and yanked her head to the side, exposing her neck._

_Buffy opened her mouth to scream when the vampire’s fangs entered her throat, but he shoved his open wrist into her open mouth and cold blood flooded her mouth. Terror and horror attacked her viciously as Buffy felt herself trying to push it away, choking as the blood leaked down her throat and a wild seizure of despair wrenched her limbs as she realized what was happening._

_But she was too weak._

_The little blood she seemed to have left was being sucked away from her as the vampire dug his wrist as hard as he could into her mouth, forcing her to drink…_

_And then just like that, the wrist turned to dust in her mouth and the blood was replaced with ash as she dropped to the ground. A pair of arms caught her awkwardly, painfully, as she and her savior fell down together._

_Dean’s face was over hers, his face looking pretty desperate and a little pissed off. She saw his mouth moving, saw him looking around. She felt his hands holding her face as he shouted at her but she couldn’t hear him… She mouthed his name, the joy of seeing him alive and not glassy-eyed replacing the horror of what had just happened, and he looked even angrier._

_She wanted to apologize. Apologize for being there, for the vampires, for letting her neck get bitten. She just wanted to say she was sorry._

_‘Hey, sorry I did exactly what you told me not to with the whole slaying bit. My bad.’_

_The world was starting to fade into black, the edges getting indistinct, and Buffy felt her lips turning up in a smile. She wanted to lift her hand, touch his face one more time, a strange and morbid happiness settling in and making her feel a peace she had only felt one other time that she had gotten to see him just once more._

_It was Dean, only Dean… So strange and foreign, this feeling, this desire and need. So different from what she’d had with Angel, with Riley and Spike and with Ted…_

_She was a little sad she was going to die hating herself that she hadn’t just given in to what she had wanted all along._

_His lips wouldn’t stop moving as he brushed hair from her forehead, cradling her face. He leaned down, pressing a kiss to her forehead and Buffy hated that she couldn’t feel it._

_He shook her head a little and that only made Buffy more tired…_

_As her eyes slipped closed, the last thing she saw before the darkness took over was a shadow coming up behind him, long clawed fingers appearing around his head and then…_

_Nothing._

*

Sometimes stories have really crappy endings, don’t they?

You’re probably enjoying this, aren’t you? That whole soulless thing, didn’t really consider that when I chose my confidante.

So there it is again, that blood loss. Kind of a ridiculous habit I got into. Along with a nasty knack of getting my ass kicked. New York totally did not agree with me.

And okay, buddy, you can put a hold on the drool thing too. Seriously. There won’t be any big ol’ bowls of blood o’ mine for you to play around in so stop salivating. The gross factor alone, ew.

*

_“Buffy!”_

_Someone slapped her._

_“Buffy, come on, wake up,” someone was saying but they sounded like they were a million miles away. “Buffy?”_

_Buffy tried to take a deep breath but it was like breathing through a hose while the water was on at full pressure and with the nozzle set to ‘destroy.’ Whatever was wet and soggy in her mouth slithered down her throat and Buffy started choking which made her body feel like it was being ripped into a thousand pieces from every direction._

_“Oh thank god,” someone breathed and Buffy felt someone’s hands on her face. She tried to open her eyes but it wasn’t so easy as they seemed to be glued shut. What was happening? “Breathe, baby, breathe, there you go.”_

_Buffy cracked an eye open but it was pitch black wherever she was. She felt someone tapping her cheek and she tried to turn her head towards it, to bite or yell at whoever was doing it, but her head just lolled over on whatever she was laying on._

_Which happened to be a human being._

_“Buffy?”_

_“Dean?” Buffy croaked. The rattling of her vocal chords were the last thing her throat wanted and she coughed, making her choke more which made her cough more which in turn made her feel like her diaphragm was completely missing. Buffy keeled in pain, trying to roll away from the claws that still felt like they were digging into her stomach but they wouldn’t go away._

_And Dean wouldn’t let her move._

_“Easy, you’re gonna go out again, stay still.” Buffy tried opening her eyes again but her lids were made of steel and she couldn’t put enough effort into opening them. She wanted to see him. She wanted to make sure it was him, really him. She remembered the vampire hands slipping around his head and she gasped, feeling her abdominal muscles trying to work to make her sit up but all she could achieve was flopping around. Her eyes split open. “Hey, hey, calm down, calm down, you’re okay.”_

_“You,” was all she said through gritted teeth, her eyes squeezing shut again. “Are you?”_

_“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” was all he said as she felt his arms around her, moving her until she sitting upright against his chest. Buffy groaned. “I know, I’m sorry, just a few more seconds here.” And then his voice erupted. “Whoa, whoa, watch it! You almost hit that guy!”_

_“Dude, you need to relax,” came from the front seat before Dean grumbled, “Fucking New York, nobody can fucking drive. Hey! One piece, Garth, one piece!”_

_“What’s happening? Where’s the creepy lady?” Buffy moaned, the words slurring together, her face falling into the crook of his neck as she felt the blissfulness of unconsciousness coming over her again. “I’m so tired.”_

_“No, no, no, you’re not, stay with me, Buffy,” Dean said. “Stay with me, come on.” Dean’s shoulder jerked against her head, pushing her back into the conscious world for one more second before lifting her up so he could grab her face. His hands felt so nice on her cheeks, so warm and comfortable… “You’re fine, come on, look at me. Buffy, look at me, goddamn it.”_

_Buffy opened her eyes, her head lolling in Dean’s hands until they were what were supporting her, not her own neck. Wow, she actually felt a little headless right now._

_“I feel so…” She felt her eyes sliding close, slipping away. It just felt so good, so much better than the awful cold numbness she was feeling. There was nothing inviting about that compared to the warm happy place she felt herself slipping towards. “Dean…”_

_“Buffy, no!”_

_Buffy slipped away again, the promise of a peaceful darkness too enticing. Until she felt someone slapping her again._

_“Hey, wake up, wake up, we’re here,” Dean was saying and Buffy was ready to push his hand away to feed it to some hungry stray dogs so she could just stay right where she was forever and get some freaking sleep when he moved. She heard the familiar creak of his car doors opening and then the chilly air as he leapt awkwardly from the backseat of the Impala, running with her in his arms. Buffy tried to talk, tried to tell him to slow down, but the only thing she could worry about was not falling out of his arms. Which felt like an irrational thing to think but she felt like she was going to fall any minute…_

_“Hey, we need some help here,” Dean shouted after the whoosh of doors sliding open and suddenly it was much colder as the familiar smell of antiseptic hospital reached her nose. Buffy tried shaking her head but she didn’t have the strength. Or maybe she didn’t even have the ability._

_“Oh my god,” someone said. There was the sound of a loud beeping before more doors opened. “Dr. Lifka! What happened?”_

_“We were attacked,” was all Dean said._

_“She’s covered in blood, what kind of attack are we talking here?” the woman replied._

_She felt Dean’s arms tightening around her as he snapped, “She just needs help, not twenty goddamn questions!”_

_“Sir, you have to calm down if we’re going to help,” the woman said and Buffy heard the squeaking wheels of something coming towards and then Dean was setting her down on something. “And we need every bit of information we can get so we can properly help her. You need to tell me what happened.”_

_“Yeah, I know, sorry-”¬_

_“It’s okay-”_

_“A guy-”_

_“And you’re bleeding-”_

_“No, I’m fine, just help her…”_

_Buffy was suddenly being pushed away from Dean’s voice at a rapid rate and she heard people talking over her as everyone started touching her. She felt one of them lift her shirt and gasp as someone else found the bite wound on her neck._

_“We need to get her open, now, she has multiple…”_

_Buffy faded then._

_When she came to once more, she saw flashing lights above her and her chest felt like someone was sitting on it. Wow, rude._

_“She’s back!” someone shouted and fingers were shoved against her throat. “We got a pulse back but we’re losing her. Get her into OR 3!”_

_“Dean?” Buffy croaked, turning to look around and feeling like someone had pushed the blend mode on her life as the walls whipped by. “Dean?”_

_“Your boyfriend’s not here, sweetie.” A woman’s face popped in front of hers upside down and Buffy noticed she had really, really green eyes. “He had to wait outside. Now, honey, pay attention, are you allergic to anything?”_

_“What?”_

_“Are you allergic to any medication, we’re taking you in-”_

_Everything faded again._

*

Well that escalated fast, didn’t it?

*

_The next time Buffy woke up, she was sitting up in a bed that wasn’t very comfortable. And the pillow behind her was lumpy and it made her feel like she was sitting with her stomach extended. Like she was an extra in Alien._

_And she couldn’t feel anything._

_“She has two emergency contacts in her medical records - are you the Ted Mosby listed?”_

_Buffy felt her heart shoot to life at the sound of Ted’s name and she severely wanted to open her eyes to see who was with her or what was going on and how had she ended up here when someone’s fingers found the inside of her wrist._

_“Christ, this woman’s constitution is amazing,” a male said. Buffy opened her eyes in time to see she was lying in a hospital bed and that Dean was talking to someone in the doorway. He was wearing the same clothes as before, dirty and covered in her blood. And there was a lot of blood. Buffy tried to move, tried to get his attention as what looked like a doctor grabbed a clear tube next to her head and injected something into it. “Trust me, you’ll want this.”_

_Buffy didn’t have a chance to say, ‘No, what I want is to stand up, put on some shoes and walk right the hell out of here’ but the world was already dancing out of sight as she heard Dean say, “Uh, no. No, I’m not.”_


	19. Chapter Nineteen - March 2016

**Chapter Nineteen - March 2016**

_one world…_   
_one world…_

I had never really spent a lot of time in hospitals before. Because they suck, for one, but also because I had the trusty ol' healing thing on my side. But I'd also never lost so much blood or had a vampire use my entrails as a coloring kit.

It was a learning experience. Along with hospitals sucking, so does morphine.

*

_Her alarm clock would not shut up._

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

_And it was being annoyingly gentle this morning. Buffy shifted her head on her pillow, feeling strangely fuzzy as she tried to lift her arms. It felt like she was swimming in ice cream._

_Ice cream sounded nice. Her mouth was full of mouse fur._

_Her arms were itchy and she felt like someone had wrapped a rubber band around her abdomen and her ribs and her chest. Like the corset she had worn that one time for Angel. Spike would have loved one of those… although he hadn’t that first time… although he had just wanted to kill her then so that didn’t really count._

_God, she didn't remember him being this big of a jerk…_

_This corset didn’t feel nearly as comfortable as that one had though. This one was crushing her lungs._

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

_“I’m up,” Buffy groaned, swinging her arm out to smash the stupid alarm clock to pieces but there was no nightstand there. Buffy’s eyes snapped open as the momentum from swinging her arm had her rolling out of the bed she was laying in before plastic guarding stopped her, the plastic digging into her chest plate and into her stomach._

_Which hurt. A lot._

_Buffy gasped, hot pain searing through her body as she felt someone’s hands grabbing her shoulder and rolling her onto her back again. She heard the crinkling of thin sheets and that gentle, rhythmic beeping… Buffy blinked, looking around but seeing only whiteness before squeezing her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the world had more color but it was like someone had hit the soften button on everything. Or her eyes were actually cotton balls._

_“Buffy?”_

_"I taste like mouse fur," Buffy mumbled. The person chuckled and Buffy rolled her head on the pillow again, smacking her lips. "Dean, shut up."_

_Dead silence was her response. Buffy frowned, her mind already filling in the space with what she knew would be a sarcastic response despite being in the hospital and she knew she wasn't talking to Dean. Her stomach dropped at the realization._

_“Where am I?” she groaned at the voice. She squeezed her eyes shut again and moved her hands to rub them but found her arms felt tethered and her eyes flicked open in confusion to stare at her arms. One had a plastic snake coming out of it and the other had a red one. She blinked, staring at the red snake before everything else started coming into focus. She looked around._

_“Did you hear me?”_

_“What?” Buffy asked, turning towards the voice and saw Ted. A jolt of surprise hit her. He offered her small smile and Buffy's frown deepened. She tried to process how he was there, how he knew she was there and where was Dean? Buffy finally shook her head at his stupid question. Her thoughts seemed to be slugging through mud and she felt like she had just woken up from a 100 year nap a la Rip Van Winkle._

_“You’re at Lenox Hill.”_

_“What hill?” Buffy asked, grabbing the red tube before changing her mind and grabbing the beefier one in her right arm to rip out but Ted snatched her hand before she could do it._

_“Don’t do that, silly. You won’t be as funny to see right now without all that fun morphine pumping into your system.”_

_For all Buffy was aware, it sounded like he had just told her someone had asked her to make out with a basketball and call it Morpheus._

_“What?”_

_“You’re at the hospital,” Ted said, his voice low and she felt his fingers graze her forehead but that was probably more because she saw his hand coming towards her face instead of actually feeling it. “You were attacked in the park.”_

_“I was?” Buffy asked, shaking her head and trying to remember but it was like shoving a needle into a black hole. She couldn’t concentrate on finding any one specific thing, much less the endless abyss that was her head. All she knew in that moment was that she really didn’t like having so many needles prodding her and doing weird things and making her feel like her kidneys were on the outside of her body. What the hell had they given her?_

_“Yeah, pretty badly.” Buffy turned to Ted when he paused and she saw something shiny in his eyes before he smiled at her. She felt like she should reach out and comfort him, tell him she was okay - she was really more concerned with this stupid tube - but she wasn’t sure she had fingers. She couldn’t feel them. “I guess they cut you up and…”_

_Like a flashbulb erupting in her mind’s eye, Buffy caught flitters of images. She had been patrolling the park, taking a walk when she had run into the Spanish woman with the thick accent._

_“It’s all about the enunciation,” Buffy whispered to herself as she closed her eyes. And then… Creepy Nera. The woman with the black eyes. And the vampires. And she's even gotten her own personal vampire with claws the size of that knifey guy from X-Men… and then blood. Lots of blood. The bowl, filling the bowl as she realized she was going to end the world again - must be a Wednesday - as she felt like her insides were being pulled through her skin… And pain, immense and terribly pulling pain. And then she had gone swimming in her own life force before finding the strength to move before that vampire had grabbed her._

_Buffy tried to slap a hand up to her face, to feel if she had fangs, to see what her face was doing, but the stupid tethering cords were tying her down. She heard Ted reacting but she didn't care as she turned over, spitting out whatever was in her mouth - the cold, congealed vampire blood that quickly turned to ash…_

_And then the vampire had been gone and…_

_“Dean,” Buffy gasped, her eyes flying open, interrupting Ted’s explanation of what had apparently happened to her because of some random muggers… Buffy tried sitting up but her abdomen had other plans as a deep tearing coming from the center of her stomach stopped her. She groaned in pain, her hand flying to where a whole tree of bandages covered her but she tried again. “Where’s Dean?”_

_“Hey, come on, calm down,” Ted said, his voice quiet as he grabbed her shoulders and forced her to lay back down. “They almost flayed your stomach wide open and you’re lucky you didn't need an entire new set of upper bowel. Or a liver or a spleen. Or a new neck since you kinda became a chew toy.” Buffy stared at him, not seeing him. He frowned and had she been aware of what was happening, she would have heard him forcing his light tone. “Which is kinda gross. They gave you a rabies shot for that.”_

_“For what?” Buffy asked, not comprehending his words as she tried to reach up and push his hands away so she could sit properly and see the room for herself but the morphine was dulling everything but the pain, which didn’t sound right. Shouldn't that be the other way around?_

_And she was still definitely recovering from losing so much blood - god, a whole stone bowl and then the vampire had bitten her… Bile rose up in the back of her throat, a sickening acidy taste. Swallowing it back, Buffy tried to move again but her arms were about as useful as limp spaghetti noodles again. The thin ones, this time, the angel hair pasta noodles._

_That wasn’t stopping her._

_“No, I have to go; I have to see if he’s okay.”_

_“Buffy, please-”_

_“No, you don’t understand!” Buffy said loudly, ignoring the hands holding her down and instead moving to pull the IV out, stop the evil morphine in its tracks. “If he’s back out there then so are they and they’re going to kill him! They’re going to-”_

_“Buffy, stop,” Ted snapped at her and Buffy stilled at his tone, her eyes wide, breathing heavily. She didn’t feel the pull of the stitches in her neck or the stitches in her abdomen or the severe blood loss. All she heard was the commanding tenor she had never heard come from Ted before. “He brought you in, okay? He’s fine.”_

_Buffy furrowed her brow, shaking her head. Flashes came back again of being in Dean's car as he held her, talking to her about something, she couldn’t remember. And then there had been doctors and then the smell that she couldn't smell anymore although she knew she was in the hospital and…_

_"Then where is he? Where is he?"_

_She squeezed her eyes shut as the images flickered through her mind again. She saw hands wrapping around his head like they were ready to rip it off, just like they had done to that vampire… they were going to kill him when she blacked out. She had just slipped away, let them take him, let them destroy everything… He was out there and he was going to die. She had never been so certain of anything. “I need to get him!”_

_“Buffy, please, you’re kinda freaking me out here,” Ted said, moving to brush hair from her eyes but Buffy jerked away from his touch, once more aiming to yank the needles out of her arm but Ted grabbed her arms again, yelling for help over his shoulder._

*

It was probably along the lines of something like, “Nurse! Quick! The crazy, rabid lady in room 253 is going to chew her arm off if that needle stays in one second longer!”

Wacky blood loss. It’s funny because I’m so flippant about it now. At the time, it wasn’t so much with the funnies.

It was scary because the morphine wasn’t helping anything. We were not the definition of bosom buddies, it turns out.

*

_The next time Buffy woke up, it was with a shout on her lips as she struggled against something binding her to the bed. She was stuck. She couldn’t move. And they were coming. No, they were already there. She felt the wet stickiness of her blood all over again, creeping up and drowning her and she was powerless to do anything as she was pulled under, as they got closer._

_They were fast, moving through the shadows. Her heart lurched when she looked up and straight into familiar green eyes; they were wide with terror and pain as large clawed hands crept up from behind and gripped his jaw before snapping his head viciously to the left, breaking his neck with one smooth movement._

_“No!”_

_“Hey, hey, calm down, calm down,” someone was saying but Buffy couldn’t hear them. All she heard was the cracking and her own cries as someone was suddenly beside her, warm hands on her cheek. “Buffy.”_

_“No,” Buffy moaned, yanking out of the hands and trying to free her own but she was stuck. “Dean!”_

_“Buffy! Come on, it’s just a dream,” the voice was saying and then Buffy felt the stiff mattress underneath her, the heat of the room, the tubes still sticking in her arms._

_And like the flip of a switch, the surge of adrenaline that the dream had brought on suddenly abandoned her and Buffy collapsed on the bed, breathing heavily. She tried to yank on the bindings again but to no avail as even that became too hard to do._

_“Buffy?”_

_“What?” she asked groggily, opening her eyes to see Ted hovering over her. She felt his thumbs stroking her cheeks, his skin hot and sticky against hers, and she angled her face away from his touch before looking around. “What-”_

_“You were dreaming again. About the attack,” Ted said simply._

_“The attack?”_

_Right. The attack. Buffy’s heart lurched at the thought and she tried sitting up but the pain was worse than the last time she had awoken and Buffy gasped, the heat of the pain eradicating everything for a split second and it was all she could focus on._

_“Hey, they’re going to just come back in here and dope you up again if you don’t stop that.”_

_“What?”_

_“They stopped the morphine, but it's going to take a minute to get out of your system,” Ted said, angling his head to catch her eye but she was staring at the bag of blood to her right. “It was making you hallucinate, you kept waking up and yelling about vampires in the room.”_

_“Vampires?” Buffy repeated, closing her eyes as his words settled in. “Right. Hallucinating.”_

_Hallucinating… nothing was real. Nothing had been real._

_She was unable to stop the tear that escaped, leaking back into her hair._

*

Apparently I had done the dance of death a few times in the hospital before the surgery. I remembered just closing my eyes but apparently my heart stopped for a few seconds here and there. So that might even put me at dying… five times?

Anyway, that meathead vampire's gross claws put a hole through my stomach and lacerated my spleen. The rest of the claws had missed anything else major but I was chock full o' bacteria and stomach acid leaking out apparently so they had to clean everything out. I don't know, I don’t really remember but life lesson: don't put a hole in your stomach. Stomach acid belongs inside the stomach.

They did mention a few times that I was lucky to be alive and that I appeared to be healing at a faster than normal rate. And that had I not been a Slayer, I would have died. Alright, that last part was mine but still. Yes, preternatural healing saves the day again.

They really did give me a rabies shot since they weren’t sure if it was a dog that bit me; I’d kinda thought Ted was joking although it was probably a good idea since vampires might carry some weird form of rabies. You guys do get a little rabid.

Just like that, yeah.

Anyway, the police came, the schpeel was done and had.

They kept mentioning the man who had found me and brought me in. They said his name was Joe Elliot. Thankfully Ted was absent from the room in that moment. This ‘Joe Elliot’ apparently had disappeared pretty quickly after Ted had gotten there although Ted didn't tell me what had happened. I know now but that would just be spoiling the fun, wouldn't it?

I know you're enjoying this story, so I'll let you guess what happened between Ted and Dean.

They were asking after Dean like he was the criminal jerk who had done it and I kept repeating the, “No, I don’t really remember,” thing.

Which now, in retrospect, sounds pretty bad for him but I was kind of still reeling from the whole dying again bit. Which, again, I should be used to but this was a whole new version of oatmeal raisin Buffy. With a whole new set of insecurities, questions and weirdness.

*

_Bright colored people were on the TV. The cued audience laughter filled her hospital room._

_“How you feeling today?” Ted asked._

_Buffy shrugged. “Fine. Okay. Healing.”_

_“Good. The doctors said you’re turning into a pretty fast healer. That CT scan they did came back almost a-okay, especially since you kept pulling your stitches."_

_Buffy could tell he was toeing a line, playing at being light considering everything that had gone down over the last two days. She just wanted to close her eyes and disappear for few minutes. Instead she gave him a small smile._

_“Yeah, I don’t really like… hospitals. Or stitches.”_

_Ted smiled at her. “I didn’t know that.”_

_Dean's voice floated through Buffy's mind from a while ago when she had been complaining about hospitals when he had cut her off, "And lonely, cold and people die there and blah blah blah. You've said all this crap about a million times, blondie."_

_Buffy's eyes brows lifted as she shrugged. “Fun Buffy fact.”_

_“You know I like my Buffy facts,” Ted said, reaching out and taking her hand. His hand felt clammy and cold. Buffy closed her eyes, squeezing his hand and smiling when he returned the squeeze. This was Ted. Her Ted. She should be happy to see him, that he was here, taking time to be there for her and her stupidity and not even asking a lot of questions about the "attack" and what had happened to her._

_In fact, he was being downright supportive without pushing and it was exactly what she should want._

_So why couldn't she erase this feeling… she didn't even know what to call it. She just knew she wanted someone else there. And she didn't know what to do about it._

_A long moment passed before Ted opened his mouth and then closed it again. Buffy forced herself to keep her eyes on him, already knowing what was going to come out. It had been two days since the attack and she knew she was well on her way in the healing department. The morphine for the first day had oddly slowed down everything - the pain, her healing, her strength. It was like it was anti-Slayer or something._

_Kind of discriminatory, if you asked her._

_She’d also had a lot of downtime to think as she tried to piece together what had happened, where Dean was, who the mystery dude was that had been there to save the day and almost run into people on the way to the hospital, what had happened to Nera, where the bowl of her blood had ended up because that wasn’t exactly inconspicuous in the sunlight…_

_She knew this was coming. This was her first coherent moment in a while. She also just really wished hospitals came with the button where the bed just swallowed you up._

_Ted’s tone was casual. “So were you… meeting him?”_

_Buffy wanted to ask him what they had talked about when Ted had come to the hospital and Dean had just skedaddled. Despite knowing Dean wouldn't just up and abandon her here, she was a little hurt he didn't at least wait until she was awake. What if she had died?_

_She knew it was stupid to be upset but she was getting upset the more time that passed and without a word from him. Even angry words telling her 'I told you so' in thirty different ways. But nothing._

_The words came out almost like they were choreographed. Probably because they were. She hadn’t heard any story about what Dean might have told the cops - although until she saw him with her own two eyes, she didn’t know if it really was him, that random nice Samaritan or a vampire who had sprouted a conscious or she had crawled to the hospital and imagined everything..._

_Buffy cleared her throat and didn’t even have to think, the words just slid out like butter._

_“Marinna actually texted me and said he, um, Dean…” Thinking his name was one thing. Saying it out loud? “He had a showing at another art gallery and you know how she is, kind of competitive. So she volunteered me to go over and check it out and… I cut through the park because it was over at that cheap and creepy one on Columbus. I don’t even remember what happened, honestly.”_

*

Ted wasn’t an idiot. We all knew that. Even you freaking know that.

Things would have been fine. Could have been fine.

Oatmeal raisin Buffy had gotten her moment of bloody glory just like every other Buffy moment, and that should have been enough to let chocolate chip Buffy ride the controls for a while…

But then again, this is a Buffy story and a Buffy story isn’t complete without just a little bit more of that special ingredient…

You know the one.

Misery.

Complicated, complicated misery.


	20. Chapter Twenty - April 2016

**Chapter Twenty - April 2016 (three weeks later)**

_i wanted to feel like I could tell you why_   
_thought I could almost see the other side_   
_of something real_   
_something real_   
_it disappears before you see the signs_   
_the end is near_

_He was waiting for her outside the art gallery._

_Buffy stopped in her tracks, clenching her bag a little harder as he shoved off the wall where he had been leaning and waved at her. Awkwardly. And with a big goofy smile on his face like he was seeing an old friend._

_Buffy just stared at him, frowning, remembering him in vague flashbacks and then looked around for the one person she really wanted to see._

_But he was alone._

_Buffy swallowed the large lump that suddenly appeared at the back of her throat, biting her tongue._

_It had been three weeks since the incident in Central Park. Three weeks since her laparoscopic surgery to fix up her stomach and spleen. Two weeks since she had been working and one week since she had been officially cleared of antibiotics although she was still given the customary 'can't lift anything over ten pounds for six weeks' thing despite most of her wounds being completely healed thanks to her handy Slayer self._

_The doctors were a little baffled and they weren’t quiet about it. Buffy had actually started thanking the morphine they had given her for slowing down her natural response to wounds because otherwise she'd be under a microscope somewhere._

_Not exactly what the supernatural world needed on the cover of Scientific Today._

_It had also been three weeks since she had seen him._

_Buffy hadn’t moved as they stared at each other which prompted him to cross the street, dodging the cars. His smile was wide on a thin face and his ears and nose looked like they didn’t fit him. He was sporting a five o’clock shadow times three days and he was wearing a ratty old baseball cap and a plaid vest that was too large underneath a jean jacket. It looked like he and Dean were shopping buddies at Plaid 'R Us._

_“Hi,” he said. “I don’t know if you remember me-”_

_“You were the guy who did the sweep-in-heroic thing that night in the park,” Buffy replied, nodding. His smile turned into a full-blown grin as she looked around before focusing on him again, not letting him get a word in edgewise. “What are you doing here?”_

_“Oh, well… yeah, that was me, although I wouldn’t really call it heroic,” he replied with a selfless smile and Buffy wondered how a smile could even be selfless. He just looked like a good guy. A nice guy. And considering the whole trundle-full of weirdness she was feeling with anything Dean-wise, she didn’t know what to think about him and his vibe. She kind of didn't want to like him based on the simple fact that she was upset with Dean. “And I’m here because I don’t want to be creepy. That's all.”_

_Buffy raised an eyebrow at him._

_“Creepy as in letting you know I’m following you instead of not telling you.” He chuckled when Buffy cocked her head as she tried to follow where he was going. He shoved his hand out. “I’m Garth by the way. I’m here because Dean asked me to, uh, check up on you. Is what I was trying to say.”_

_“You’re Garth?” Buffy asked. She took his hand, unable to hold back a smile at the revelation. “I’ve actually heard a lot about you.”_

_“Oh really?” Garth replied with that same smile. “Good things I hope. I know Dean-”_

_“All good, I promise. I kinda feel like I know you already actually,” Buffy said. “He told me a lot of funny stories about you.” Buffy shook her head at herself. “And for some reason the only ones popping up in my head are the ones about your sock puppet.”_

_“He told you about Mr. Fizzles?” Garth asked with a grin, shaking his head. “That ol’ softie. You know he complains about it more than anything, asking what else I do with him.”_

_Buffy rolled her eyes. “I can hear him saying that. But I only heard good things, I swear.”_

_“Well, good, there’s hope for him yet. I wish I could say the same for you,” he said, rocking back on his heels and Buffy raised her eyebrows at his words as he continued, the words just spilling out, “But that’s just Dean, he keeps everything a little too close to the belt. I keep telling him it’s healthy to talk, but… Well, anyway, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t think I was some random creepy dude following you everywhere.”_

_“He asked you to follow me?” Buffy asked. Garth nodded, opening his mouth to defend his actions or Dean’s stupidity, she wasn’t sure but she interrupted, anger coloring her words. “What, he got enough Buffy stalking fun in for the year? Decided to cut out and run while he still could?”_

_“Not exactly-”_

_“So what, he’s making you reach your own stalking quota?”_

_Garth held up a hand. “Dean asketh a favor, and I do it. He said, ‘Just do it, Garth, she’s like a porn shop sign in the middle of the night for all her subtlety.’”_

_“He said what?” Buffy replied sharply and Garth chortled._

_“I suppose he’s the one who lacks subtlety,” he replied. “But no, he just wanted to make sure everything stayed cool around here. I’m assuming he would have stuck around but I guess something went down at the hospital but he wouldn’t say what. Put him in a right funky little mood though.” Buffy frowned. “And before you ask, I don't know. I had Lady Impala duty that night - which he threatened my life over - so I wasn’t there when he took you in.”_

_“Oh.”_

_“I’m just the messenger unfortunately.”_

_"So why did he ask you to follow me? Are there more creepy demon people getting in line behind Creepy Nera?"_

_"No, no, not that I know of. I actually figure it's just because Dean's a moron," Garth replied good-naturedly and Buffy stared at him. He waved her off like it was nothing new. "He does this when he doesn't want to admit that someone means something to him."_

_Buffy felt her heart trip at the words and swallowed down the same lump that kept appearing at the back of her throat. She had a feeling its name was 'Dean Emotions That Should Not Be There.'_

_Buffy bit her lip before nodding. “Okay. So he's… okay?”_

_“Oh yeah, he’s fine. A lot grumpier than usual which means his take-it-out-on-everyone-around-him-like-Garth levels are a little too high, even for him, but he’s okay. And no, I can’t tell you where he is.”_

_Buffy stared at him, getting a little annoyed with how quickly he was jumping around and assuming things. “I wasn’t going to ask that.”_

_“Yeah you were. It’s okay, I get it. He won't even tell me, if that makes you feel better, thinks I'll nark on him. Personally I think you’re both being idjits, but it’s none of my business and I'm staying out of it.”_

_Buffy felt her lips pulling back in an unconscious smile despite wanting to ask what the heck an idjit was. "You really care about him."_

_"Yeah. Yeah, I do," Garth replied and Buffy wondered if he ever didn't smile. She found it weird since the only other hunters she had met had been surly jerks who didn’t know that their mouths could move that way. On Garth, it was infectious._

_"So he's not coming back is what I'm gathering from this," Buffy said. She wanted to feel irritated by this. She wanted to pretend that she hadn't spent more than too many hours looking out her window, checking in every crevice and shadow, waiting to hear that peculiar sound of the Impala's engine… she wanted to pretend that she wasn't as affected by him disappearing as she seemed to be. That she hadn't been spending her moments when she had been gutted in the park thinking about only one person._

_The person whom she had firmly placed in the ‘no, can’t do that’ category a long time ago._

_Despite that, the lump in her throat grew bigger and she felt tears burning at the thought of him not coming back. Really, what she been expecting? Things were the same now as they had been when they first met. Only with a little more complicated on the side._

_Buffy blinked, sending Garth a thin smile when she saw him staring at her._

_She wanted to add to that list, 'Pretend like this random guy she'd just met whom she felt more comfortable around than the people she had spent the last couple of years with couldn't read her every thought like she was an open book.' Because it was eerie._

_"That's what he said. Listen, having me around won’t change much, I know that. He knows that too, he’s just a stubborn idiot. It gets worse the longer you know him. I can follow you around all I want and it won't change anything. And I know you've got whatever stuff happening here and that's probably what has crawled its way up Dean's butt and died, but... can I make an observation?"_

_"Don't think I can really stop you," Buffy said, trepidation filling her chest at his words. So Garth knew. Ted knew. Dean knew. Everyone knew._

_She didn’t even know what it was. She just knew… something was there. She just didn't want to put a name to it. Really, really didn't want to put a name to it, like keeping it nameless kept it harmless…_

_"Are you happy?"_

_Buffy started at the question, immediately shaking her head as she looked away. "That's not much of an observation."_

_"That's a question."_

_"Well, I don't-"_

_"I'm asking because I don't think you know what you're doing," Garth interjected. He offered an apologetic smile when Buffy glared at him. "I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying… people find their paths in weird ways. Stuff just happens. I was a dentist before I fell into the hunting life and I thought I was happy then… but I'm happier now. Which is kinda weird but it means something more to help people like this instead of cleaning out cavities._

_"I just think you're toeing the line between two worlds right now. And you can’t do that. You have to pick one. And stick to it."_

_"Okay, the whole 'hey we might be buddies' thing has gone away now. You don't really know anything about me-"_

_"I'm a pretty good observer, actually," Garth said. "And I also kinda started keeping track of Slayers along with hunters since I really don't think they're the bad guys like some of the guys out there do and-"_

_Buffy's glare turned suspicious as she took a step towards him, dodging a businessman who walked between them. "What do you mean 'keeping track'?"_

_Garth stepped back, his hands flying up. "Whoa, hey, no need to turn on the anger, I don't mean anything bad. I mean that I kinda… know about you guys and I know that you're Buffy Summers, the original Slayer." Buffy's eyes narrowed and she saw Garth shiver in reaction before stepping away again when she stepped towards him. "Which is how Dean knew, so hey, good part. And I also know that you blew up your hometown and that there's a Slayer headquarters and okay, you can stop chasing me now."_

_"How about instead of playing Fun Facts, you tell me how you know all that."_

_"I've got friends. Good friends, witchy people, good people," Garth replied. "I'm not a bad guy, I swear. I'm just a regular guy like you. Only you're a girl. I'm just trying to be nice and tell you I get it."_

_"You've got a really funny way of trying to be nice."_

_"Whoa, hey, I don't know how this got all weird, I'm not trying to be weird. I'm just giving my two cents worth.”_

_“Yeah, two cents too much, don’t you think?”_

_Garth dodged away from the edge of the sidewalk and switched them around so his back was facing the gallery. “Let’s start over. Clean slate.” He waved his hand, imitating wiping a slate and Buffy rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. “Hi, I’m Garth Fitzgerald, IV, and you’re Buffy Summers.” Buffy sighed. “And the reason I’m being so nosy is because… it’s because of Dean. It’s not fair to him.”_

_“What exactly is not fair to him?” Buffy asked. “I’m pretty sure I was the one who got gutted a few weeks ago, who had her cheese and crackers spilling into her abdomen because a vampire nail caught an entrail and I’m pretty sure I was the one stuck in a hospital. I’m the not the one disappeared on me.”_

_“No, you’re the one wanting both the pie and the cake. You’re the one with a boyfriend and a normal life playing Slayer at night,” Garth replied just as quickly. Buffy’s heart fluttered to a stop at his words, a simultaneous anger that he knew so much about her and that he was actually saying the words building stomach acid in her gullet._

_He shrugged. “I don’t know what’s happened between you two but it was big, whatever it was. He hasn’t been this closed off since Sam left. So whatever line you’re walking, whatever you think you’re doing, it’s not good. For either of you. And it’s not fair. To him.”_

_Buffy just stared at him._

*

He was right. He was so right. Garth is like that, he has this amazing ability to see straight through people unless it’s dealing with something bumpy in the night. Then you really don’t want him around. One time he Garthed an entire cemetery.

Anyway, getting off-topic. He was right.

I was back in the Land of Denial like a hard kick to the head.

And guess what happened?

I actually listened to him.

I was trying to walk in both worlds. I was trying to be with Ted in one life and with Dean in another. I wanted both. Both of them made me feel different things, things I wanted to feel. I wanted the normal life that Ted could give me, the one that had been snatched away from me when I was fifteen but… the world that Dean lived in felt right too. I was a walking, talking Nicholas Spark book. Well, I never read the book but Dawn lamented on about it forever and then the movie came out and get out of the way, crazy girl steamrolling you on her way to the theater.

So I chose.

I stopped looking for Dean around every corner. I stopped looking over my shoulder. I gave up slaying, again - unless it presented itself in my lap and then I had no choice, I wasn’t going to completely get rid of oatmeal raisin Buffy, she had a heart. But I gave myself back over to chocolate chip Buffy like there was no tomorrow.

It was surprisingly easy to flip the switch back. Shockingly easy even how quickly I was able to just slip back into my Manhattan life, like it was me that had been holding everything back.

Which, yeah, it was.

Hi, stubborn girl here.

But hearing Garth talking about Dean like that… maybe it was knowing someone else that Dean knew. I only knew Dean as I knew him and hearing someone else talk about him like that… like he was this… I don't know, guy made of glass or something… I listened.

So… I chose. If you could even call it choosing. I guess you could say I chose to just stick with the plan from Day One.

Ted and I didn’t talk about the Dean Era as I began to think of it and things started getting better. A lot better.

Things were back to the way they should be and I was back to being happy.

Content again in the life I had chosen. I had found a balance that was worth working for.

After a few months, after forcing myself to put to bed everything that had happened over the last few years, I put it all to rest inside a heavy chained box in my head and I buried it away for good. I was glad that I had met Dean, that he had given me a restart on the slaying thing.

I even began to think that that was what was supposed to happen all along, like the Powers That Be had sent him over just to get me slaying again. To save my life from a few follies and get me back on the right trail.

Life was good again, as good as it could be.


	21. Chapter Twenty-One - May 2017

**Chapter Twenty-One - May 2017 (thirteen months later)**

_well there’s a change in the wind_   
_you know the signs don’t lie_   
_such a strange feeling and I don’t know why_   
_it’s taking such a long time…_

_“You will never believe who I saw today.”_

_Buffy looked up at Robin as she slid in next to her in their booth. The grin she was sporting could have cracked her face had all that pesky muscles not been there._

_“Who?” Ted asked. “The creepy guy you dated who stole all your underwear?” Buffy and Lily chuckled at him and Buffy caught his eye and the small smile he sent her way. She returned it, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear before turning her attention back to Robin._

_“Pfft, I wish,” Robin replied. “I’d beat the crap out of him; I would like all those panties back, they aren’t cheap, you know. Lily knows, you should see what she bought Marshall last week." Lily nodded knowingly and Ted rolled his eyes. "But no, it wasn’t him.”_

_“Do we know him?” Lily asked and Robin nodded. “Oh, okay. Is he tall?” Robin nodded again._

_“How did this turn into a game of twenty questions?” Ted asked._

_“Shut up, it’s fun,” Lily replied, elbowing Ted before turning back to Robin. “Okay, is he wearing shorts?”_

_“What?” Robin asked with a chuckle. “What kind of question is that?”_

_“Come on, just spit it out, the suspense is killing us,” Buffy interjected, elbowing Robin._

_“Do you guys remember that artist guy from a while back?” Buffy’s heart stopped as Robin continued on, turning to each of them, her hair bouncing with her movements. Buffy just stared at her lips as they moved, watching the words form rather than hearing them. No… “The one in that sexy leather jacket, the one who reminded me of Simon?”_

_“Oh yeah,” Lily said, pointing at Robin as the light bulb clicked on in her head before she pointed to Buffy. “He was in your art gallery right?”_

_Buffy’s eyes flew to Lily’s at the words before slipping over to Ted, feeling the blood leaking from her face as the words slowly processed inside her mind like they were moving through molasses. Ted was staring at her, his face dark and blank. Buffy’s lips suddenly felt really dry and she licked them, forcing a smile on her face for the table._

_“Yeah,” she said softly, nodding her head and turning back to Robin. “Yeah, that was a long time ago.”_

_“What was his name?”_

_It had been a long time since Buffy had given herself a moment to think about Dean. Sure, she thought about him from time to time - far, far away like he had always promised he would stay, like Garth had said he would stay and like she said she would be fine with - and that had been… fine. Easy and manageable and more like looking back on an old friend from high school or something._

_But he had never been back here._

_He wasn’t supposed to come back here._

_Because… he wasn't._

_The tiny little box in which she had shoved everything into - all the… whatever it was, the Egh Feelings, suddenly snapped open and Buffy found it hard to breathe as she thought about Dean being there. Within walking distance, driving distance, train distance… he was within distance and Buffy felt like her chest was about to implode._

_“Dean,” Ted said for her and Buffy’s eyes flew back to him but he wasn’t looking at her. He took a healthy sip of his beer before smiling at Robin. “Yeah, he had that whole tortured artist thing going on about him. Whatever that was about.”_

_“That was about getting into my pants. And it was working, and I would have been a-okay with HIM taking all my panties, but he ran off,” Robin replied with a large smile before turning back to Buffy. “Whatever happened to him? I was hoping he’d come back in, but he never did.”_

_“No, I heard he had a thing outside of New York. Some art show thing,” Ted said, the smile on his face looking entirely off. Buffy frowned at him, watching him speak, and it was like looking at a Ted doppelganger. He just looked… off._

_Buffy could barely remember them ever speaking to each other, much less sharing any bit of information involving future plans. She felt the inner black hole growing larger as a healthy dose of suspicion about what Ted way saying - like he actually knew, like they had talked, like they had… been near each other in any capacity without her around - leached into the mess and she shoved it all away. Down that path laid danger. Besides, that was all done anyway. No more Dean._

_Pulling the beer glass up to her lips, she concentrated on the simple act of drinking as she imagined a suitcase in her mind and shoving everything inside before snapping it shut._

_That part of her life was gone. Over._

_“Well, he is back,” Robin said and the beer Buffy was drinking became entirely tasteless. “I had to go all the way over to the other side of Brooklyn for this story about a duck. Apparently it had saved some little rats or something, but they were all gone by the time we got there so it was kind of us mostly filming the water, waiting for the stupid thing to come back, when I saw him at this crappy motel over there." Robin leaned back into the booth, looking affronted. "And he ran away when he saw me.”_

_“Beware of Robin,” Ted said, his voice lacking everything that made him Ted as he took another drink. Buffy just stared at her beer before realizing what she was doing. She forced herself to look up and over at Robin, smiling and nodding as Lily said something. She didn’t want to glance at Ted, she didn’t want to see what he was thinking or think about anything that he might be thinking because that stuff was done and over with._

_But then that was probably more curious if she just avoided him._

_Buffy glanced over at him, a tight smile on her face._

_He offered the same rigid smile, before dismissing her and turning back to Robin._

*

So he was back. After all that hubbub about never coming back, he was back.

Can you believe the nerve of this guy?

An entire year goes by and suddenly it’s like New York is not off-limits. It was rude. And annoying. And… distracting.

Things got smoother after Marshall and Barney arrived and Ted finally relaxed. The night continued on as it should have and Robin didn’t bring him up again. I didn’t either and neither did Ted. Lily did, when Marshall got there, to remind him of the other artist friend she had had and there was another awkward moment where it was like Ted and I were standing on islands thousands of miles apart even though we sat right across from each other.

Awkward.

Understatement.

We didn’t talk when we got home and I went to bed before Ted. I pretended to be asleep when he came in. I waited for him to fall asleep and then I waited an extra hour until he sounded like he was dead. Dead asleep, that is.

And then I got up. I got dressed.

I grabbed a cab.

I gave him directions.

I went to a motel in Howard Beach, where Robin had told me she was being sent earlier that day. It cost me seventy dollars because I was too distracted to realize the cabbie had taken the long way but I didn’t even care. I think I tipped him with an extra twenty dollars anyway.

I didn’t have to think about what I was doing or where I was going. I just went.

I didn't even think twice about coming out here without any guarantee that I would see him.

I didn't have anything planned. I had no idea what I would say. I just… went.

His car wasn’t in the parking lot when I got there and I wondered if maybe I was losing my mind, if I had been imagining the entire conversation and that I had just wandered out in the middle of the night into the middle of nowhere on the off chance of seeing the one person I knew I had no right to see.

Logic wasn’t really a big player here.

I waited.

*

_Buffy heard the roar of the Impala's engine before she saw the headlights coming around the bend of the road and her heart jumped to life at the sound, roaring through her veins as rushing blood filled her ears. The flash of adrenaline that hit her system made her arms and legs feel weak and liquidy as a glimpse of light caught the black paint and he pulled into the parking lot of the motel, parking so he was facing away from her, so he couldn't see her yet._

_Buffy's lungs felt tight, her teeth hurt, every nerve in her body was on edge and she felt like she was working on tunnel vision as the headlights cut out and the engine stopped._

_She was moving without even having to think. This entire night was done without having to think. She barely remembered the waiting she had just done for him to finally arrive, praying to any god in the sky that could or would hear her that she had the right place, and that he hadn't just cut out already._

_She had just needed to see him. A weird needy feeling that was treating her like a puppet on strings. And she wasn't fighting._

_Buffy pushed off the wall and walked towards him in the dark of the early morning hours. He sat in the car for a moment, checking his phone before reaching over to grab something in the passenger seat and then he opened his door, stepping out, swinging the duffel bag over his shoulder…_

_Buffy stopped a few feet away from the car just as he turned and he stopped at the sight of her._

_She didn't think she had ever seen anything as glorious as in that moment. Dean. Buffy bit her lip, the pregnant moment between them growing as neither moved, and instead of every other feeling she had thought she would be feeling - fear, worry, anger - she was… glad to see him. Happy._

_Which seemed to go hand-in-hand with the urge to step up and hug him… but she didn’t dare move as he looked at her warily, halfway between a skittish cat and a distrustful lion who wanted to rip her head right off._

_Buffy offered him a tiny smile, lifting her hand for a lame wave and she felt her hand shaking. He didn't move, he just stared at her. Buffy finally looked away, crossing her arms as the silence continued on before Dean's hand holding the duffel slipped off his shoulder and it fell like a dead weight._

_"Damn it," Dean said, shaking his head. He turned around, slamming his door shut, the groaning of the hinges echoing in the mostly empty parking lot._

_Buffy flinched when he turned harsh eyes back on her. She gave him a smile as she tried to make light of what was turning into a really bad idea on her part. She didn’t feel an ounce of regret about it though - like she had always known this day would come - but she did feel like she should have warned him or something. Which would have just sent him careening off in the other direction…_

_"Is that a 'damn it, she looks awesome' kind of statement or a 'damn it, why is there no hole to swallow her up' kind of statement?" Buffy asked. He didn't move. Buffy pulled her bottom lip into her mouth as she waited but the air between them only filled with more sludge. She sighed. "Well… you look good. Seems staying away from all this smog has done you wonders."_

_Her joking tone fell flat and sounded false even to her ears. Dean barely acknowledged her but to dig into his pocket for his motel room key._

_"Go home, Buffy," he said, making a wide berth around her and heading towards the motel._

_Buffy turned, watching him walk away, frowning. She shook her head in confusion, moving to follow. Go home? "What?"_

_"Get out of here."_

_Buffy stopped, just staring after him. She blinked. She blinked again._

_"Really?" she asked his retreating back. "That's all you have to say?"_

_Dean didn't stop. "Yep," he yelled over his shoulder._

_Buffy's legs moved of their own volition as she followed him._

*

In retrospect, I should have just listened. I had made things good again in chocolate chip Buffy's life and I had started putting things to rest again.

But there is an eventual end to the denial river.

*

_"Dean, stop."_

_"I've got a long day tomorrow so I need to get some sleep," was all he said as he got to the stairs leading to the second level. Gripping the metal, he turned to face her, not really seeing her though as his eyes danced all around her but never touched her face. "Thanks for… stopping by or whatever. It was good to see you."_

_His words sounded like a dry echo of some infomercial for marital counseling… robotic and forced._

_Buffy grabbed his jacket before he could ascend. "Thanks for stopping by?" she repeated. "Are you serious?"_

_Dean yanked his jacket out of her hand, giving her an indecipherable look before going up the stairs without responding. Buffy stared after him, the large wave of incredulity building up inside her ready to make her head explode._

_"Dean-"_

_"Yes," Dean snapped. He turned back to face her where she stayed at the foot of the stairs. If they were capable, his eyes would have burned her to a crisp and Buffy cringed away from them, unsure what to make of the waves of anger radiating off of him as he continued, "Yes, I'm serious. I don't know what you came here jonesing for me to say but I've got nothing for you, Buffy. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. So go."_

_'I've got nothing for you.'_

_'Nothing.'_

_Buffy felt like someone shoved an electrical pole through her chest at his words, the last words she had thought she would ever hear._

*

Again, a perfect opportunity to walk away. He was being pretty clear, right? Even by your soulless standards.

And yeah, he had a point. We hadn't seen each other in a year at that point and it had been made clear that things weren't… things anymore.

Alright, so I might of still had a little bit of the denial river to float down.

*

_The hurt that felt like a sharp stab to her heart quickly faded into fury as he turned away again and made it up to the second level._

_His parting words as he walked away, "I'll see ya," were enough._

_Buffy saw red; she couldn’t explain the burst of rage that she felt as he dismissed her - again - and walked away from her without so much as an explanation about, well, anything. Like what they had shared had meant nothing. Like what she felt meant nothing and like she was just some other chick he picked up on the side of the road and dropped off in a field somewhere._

_It was the classic ‘I’ll call you’ departing line that left people feeling like dirt, and one she was too familiar with._

_Buffy followed him up the stairs, gripping the rickety metal when it clanged loudly in the night, alerting everyone and the moon that she was following him. She didn’t care._

_"Well how about an 'I’m sorry I ditched out on you at the hospital, guess I could have stuck around to make sure you lived.' That would sure be nice since I did literally get gutted," Buffy said, grabbing his arm but he shrugged her off again._

_Dean's chuckle was humorless and dry as the desert as he shook his head. “Been hankering to throw that one in my face, haven’t you, Summers?”_

_“If the guilty hat fits. Hey, slow down there, speedy McGavin,” Buffy snapped, slipping past him so she was standing in front of him but he wouldn’t look at her. Buffy waved her hands and Dean raised an eyebrow as he stared over her head, his face passive. “Hey, buddy, my eyes are down here.” Dean rolled his eyes, looking amused in a not so amused way. "Wow. You can't even look at me?"_

_Dean spared her a quick glance, giving her a tight emotionless smile. His voice was sarcastic. “I’m so sorry I ditched you at the hospital after you did exactly what I told you not to do. Now get out of my way.”_

_“No,” Buffy replied simply. She crossed her arms. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me why you are having a hard time removing the cranky stick from your ass.”_

_“That’s fine,” Dean said, not missing a beat, pushing his bag up onto his shoulder before grabbing her upper arms and forcibly moving her to the side where she hit the wall of someone’s room. “You have fun waiting out here all night. I’m going to get some sleep.”_

_Buffy moved in front of him again, slipping past him on the walkway just as he reached his room. The look he shot her lacked every ounce of patience he had managed to scrounge up with the last look. Now he just looked ready to toss her over his shoulder._

_“Get out of my way,” he said._

_“No.”_

_“What the hell is this, what are you doing?” he asked, glaring at her. “How goddamn stubborn are you? How many more times do I have to say ‘leave me alone’ for you to get the goddamn message, huh?”_

_“I don’t want to leave you alone,” Buffy replied just as heatedly, throwing her hands up as the words tumbled out, “I'm sorry, I don’t want you to go, I don’t want you to just leave again without another word. I don’t want you to just ride into town without telling me you’re here, without… seeing you. Without making sure you’re okay, that you haven’t died or lost a limb. Okay? Is that so bad? God! Sorry I care, Dean.”_

_Dean’s face was blank as he stared at her and she felt her breath catch from the adrenaline rush as her words caught up to her, but she didn't look away, holding his gaze and hating how empty it looked. Buffy tried to put everything into her own gaze, willing his to change from the stone it was._

_“I…” Buffy swallowed, closing her eyes to catch her breath as he didn’t make a move. He didn’t make a sound and when she looked back up at him, his face was just as cold. “I didn’t like when you just disappeared. I didn’t like it.”_

_“Well tough, sweetheart, that’s life," he replied with a chilled smirk. "Now why don't you get back to your Suzie Homemaker life and I’ll get back to mine, how’s that sound?” His harsh words drove straight through her heart, feeling like they were severing it from the lack of anything warm and nice in his voice._

_Dean shoved his arm around her, pushing her out of the way as he pushed his key into the lock, twisting his wrist swiftly and pushing the door open._

_"Dean, what is wrong with you?" Buffy asked, yanking his arm out of the way. He didn't respond. “Dean, come on, please, just… will you at least look at me?” Buffy asked, her back to the dark room, putting his into even deeper shadow. “Dean.”_

_“I honestly don’t know what you want from here, Buffy.” Dean threw his duffel bag into the room. It landed with a loud clank on the floor inside. Dean took a deep breath before crossing his arms and leaning away from her, backing up until he was against the railing. He shrugged, his words casual. “Hey, we did the hunting thing together, that was great. But then it got complicated, and I don’t do complicated.”_

_“Life is complicated,” Buffy said and Dean snorted._

_“Not your type of complicated, blondie,” he replied sarcastically. He waved his hand at her. “You take it to a whole new level.”_

_“That’s not fair.”_

_“No, you’re right, it’s not fair. It’s not fair and it’s damn well not fair to Teddy boy, the normal boyfriend that every girl dreams of. How stupid do you think he is? I can guarantee you he is not at your idiot level.”_

_“Hey!” Buffy snapped. “Why are you being so mean to me, I didn’t ask for this.”_

_“No, actually you did. That day back at the motel, you asked for it. And I was the idiot who went right on along. Whatever happened, whatever is between us…" Dean ran a hand down his face, the sound of his stubble scratching at his hand bouncing between them. He looked so tired all of a sudden as his shoulders slouched and he shook his head, almost like the words were stuck in his throat. "I really can’t do this, Buffy. You need to go.”_

_Buffy didn’t budge. “Dean, please, just… talk to me. Say something. Should I start? I can start. I…” Buffy looked down as she crossed her arms before glancing back at him where he stared hard at her. “I miss you.”_

_Dean just shook his head, chuckling silently before shoving off the railing. “You can’t have both worlds, Buffy. It’s dangerous, it’s stupid and it’s goddamn selfish. Now get out of my way and go home.”_

_“You think I don’t know it’s dangerous, that I’m walking some fence somewhere with life and death on either side, you think I don’t get that? I’m the Slayer, Dean, I can’t just not do something.”_

_Dean scoffed. “That’s rich coming from you. Really it is.”_

_“You don’t understand.”_

_“No, you don’t get it. Yeah, you're the Slayer, that's not a newsflash. You," he shoved his finger into her face for emphasis and Buffy felt a flush of anger sweep over her skin as he talked at her. No exactly how she imagined this night going… "You put his life and yours in danger every time you go out. You think it’s some switch you can turn on and off, but you can’t, that’s not who you are. Nobody can live with one foot in and one foot out, that’s not how this shit works - that’s how people get dead. But you’ve got your head so far up your ass, you can’t see that you’re doing more harm than good.”_

_“Oh, so this is why you ran away?” Buffy replied sarcastically, unable to stop the words fleeing from her mouth as she pushed back as hard as he did. “Can’t do the hokey pokey, Dean?”_

_Dean ignored her. “He knows you’re lying to him, Buffy, don’t treat him like a goddamn moron.”_

_“Right, like you know him so well, like you know me. You think you know everything, don’t you, the all-knowing Dean Winchester? Should I write you a check for this awesome therapy session?”_

_“Here we go again, every single time,” Dean said with a mocking smile. “It’s everybody else and not you, isn't it? The world against Buffy.”_

_“Screw you. That's hilarious coming out of your mouth, he-who-cuts-everybody-off. Who needs emotional ties? Certainly not pathetic lonely hunters who drive around feeling sorry for themselves when there are people right here, right here in front of you, who can help. Who want to help , who want to be there. Are you that blind that you can’t see me?”_

_“This isn’t about you, Buffy,” he said, shaking his head incredulously. “Or me.”_

_“Then who, who the hell is this about besides the two people standing here yelling at each other like crazy people?”_

_Dean stopped short, staring at her like she had three heads and it clicked._

_Of course. Ted._

_"Light bulb," Dean said sarcastically._

_Buffy stared at him. Her stomach dropped. Buffy didn’t know what to say._

_Dean opened his mouth to continue but nothing came out and he slapped his mouth shut. She heard the distinctive click of his teeth slamming together as he clenched his jaw before offering her a bland smile. And she knew that type of smile. It was his 'I've had enough of this fun' smile. She'd never seen it before but the finality in his face scared her._

_All the anger that had been coursing through her veins died suddenly as she realized this was it. There would be no next time, no more 'maybe I'll see you arounds,' no more Dean. She rapidly realized that what had been driving her tonight - what had made her get up, made her get dressed and come all the way out here without a second thought - had been hope. Hope that she would see him again._

_If just for one second._

_And now…_

_“And that’s my cue. Have a nice life,” he said, pushing her out of the way again._

_But she didn’t let him._

_Buffy couldn’t explain what was happening inside her. She didn’t have a freaking manual book for emotional rollercoasters when it came to life, she felt like she had started from scratch here despite everything she had gone through but it was all faded into vague memories. She especially didn’t have a manual for Relationships with Dean Winchester. She knew everything he was saying was right, everything he pointed out that had been glaringly obvious for the last several months. For the last several years, if she was honest with herself._

_It just tasted like she was chewing on a cinder block to think about it._

_Everything moved in slow motion as she watched Dean walking out of her life again. She watched in her mind’s eye him pushing her out of the way and shutting the door in her face, not letting her say anything else because he was right. What else could she say? She had a whole list of things she knew were the right thing to say: you’re right, I need to go back to Ted. You’re right, I’m lying to myself and to him, I need to stop slaying and get on with my life and marry the man who can give me the normal life I thought I wanted so much… I need to put this stuff behind me because it's the right thing to do._

_But… she didn’t want it._

_With a startling clarity, Buffy realized she just didn’t want it. It was the life she should be living, she knew that. It was the life she had been chasing for so long now, the one that she had let eclipse her old one and become her new shining reality and what had actually felt like it was perfect… but there were a few missing pieces._

_And when those pieces came back into her life, she couldn’t deny that everything else just felt… wrong._

_And it had taken one person to show her that. And it had taken her three years to realize it._

_Buffy felt Dean pushing her aside again, ready to slam the door in her face and she grabbed his arms, stopping him._

_“Buffy-”_

_“Dean, you’re right,” she said, shrugging. He stared at her like he was listening to a fat bald man talk about the weather. Buffy tugged on his jacket sleeves, wanting him to know that she got it. She understood what he was saying. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”_

_“That’s great,” he said._

_“Dean, I don’t-”_

_“You belong with him, Buffy,” Dean interrupted abruptly, his voice soft and Buffy’s heart hollowed at as she stared up at him, her eyes filling with tears as he smiled at her. A real smile this time, nothing forced or empty; he smiled at her and it broke her heart. “Bottom line. You deserve that normal life crap, that’s who you want to be and you should go do that normal life stuff. He can give that to you. I can’t. I’m broken, my life is broken. That’s what this life does to you, it uses you and spits you back out and you… you deserve so much more than that.”_

_Buffy opened her mouth but he shook his head, gently pushing her out of the doorway, turning them around._

_“I’m gonna blame Garth for this next bit, but the crap's gotta be said because you clearly can't see it… I was selfish when I kept coming back here. It was wrong and I knew it, and you knew it, and yet I kept coming back, pushing the envelope. It was dumb. And I’m sorry it took me so long to get that out, but it is what it is.”_

_Buffy had never - in the entire time she'd known him - heard him speak like this. It made it more painful._

_"I can't be that guy, you know, I just can't. And I know you aren't that kinda person, we both know that." A tear slid down Buffy’s cheek, the trail it left behind hot and painful and he wiped it away with his thumb. She leaned into the touch but he pulled his hand away. “I don’t usually do this chick-flick stuff but you’re the kinda chick that doesn’t take a simple no for an answer.”_

_Buffy couldn’t help the watery chuckle that made her chest hurt more. It died when he pushed her away._

_“Go home, Buffy.”_

_And then he closed the door._

_Buffy’s heart shattered as a flood of tears rushed to the surface, the door blurring in front of her._

_Buffy didn't move for a long moment, just staring at the door. Waiting._

_For what? He was right._

_But she couldn't move._

_A thousand scenarios ran through her mind._

_Going home and falling into bed, hugging Ted to her and apologizing - for the first time since she had met Dean, for the first time since everything that had happened between them and for the first time since she had started lying to Ted. For the first time since she had started deciding what was best for him. For the first time for… everything._

_And Ted hugging her back. Forgiving her. Because he was Ted. Because he was better than her. Because he was more than she deserved and because she still wanted that… Wanted him and the life he could offer her. The life he had offered her over the last five years and the one she had sat on the cusp of, waiting, balancing, not jumping in with him…_

_She saw herself getting her own gallery. She saw herself opening a coffee shop with Lily that was also an art studio. She saw herself planning a baby shower for Marshall and Lily. She saw herself watching Robin and Barney on their first date - even though they wouldn’t admit anything - and she saw herself smiling with so much happiness when Ted asked her to marry her…_

_She saw a lot of things. And they all made her chest ache._

_Closing her eyes, Buffy tried to take a deep breath but it made the urge to cry worse and when she opened her eyes… the door was still closed._

_Biting her lip to keep the sobs in, she turned, clutching her shirt into a bunch over her heart._

_And she left._


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two - May 2017

**Chapter Twenty-Two - May 2017**

_I wanted to feel like I could tell you why_  
thought I could almost see the other side  
of something real  
something real  
something real  
something real 

I’m not sure if you’ve been really paying attention to Dean this entire time.

He’s a callous idiot who does what he wants and it's always his way or the highway… but he’s also the wisest person I’ve ever met.

He knew the minute he first met me what was wrong. And even though all our stuff got mixed together, he still knew. He still saw it.

*

_Each step was like walking through drying lava._

_She felt like she was two different people who had somehow survived by being sown together and now were being ripped apart violently._

_Buffy stopped at the top of the stairs, gripping the railing as tightly as she could, the metal digging into her palm. She closed her eyes, taking a deep shaky breath as she tried to push the tears back, keep them at bay._

_She didn’t want to cry._

_She really didn’t._

_Buffy couldn’t stop the sob that pushed through her lips, the tears following and she leaned against the railing. Everything that she had been keeping in the dark, everything she had been shoving away because she didn’t want to face it, came to the surface the further away from his door she got and she couldn’t have stopped crying if she wanted to. The emotions were too powerful as they pushed through every barrier she had kept up, every denial-ridden barrier she had erected that was supposed to never let this happen._

_Buffy slid down, sitting on the top step of the stairs as she cried._

_How had she let everything fall apart? How had everything changed and shifted so much that she wasn't even sure what she wanted anymore? She could remember with such perfect clarity how happy she had been before she met Dean. How perfect her world had seemed. But then he had come into her life and something had just… fit._

_He made her feel… good. Great. Awesome. New. Unlike anything she had ever had in her life, especially when it came to anything Slayer-related. He had made it seem okay. Right. Like it was normal and it was just her and he accepted her in all shapes and forms._

_But he also drove her completely up the wall. He challenged her and he saw things in her that used to scare her. The things that Spike harped on, the things about her and what being the Slayer meant to her as a person, the things that made it sound like she was a thing of darkness. Not human. They were the things she saw in him. A darkness, a uniqueness, a likeness, a…_

_But then there was Ted. Who was the light. A lightness that was almost burning. The lightness she craved and knew she wanted in her life._

_Buffy cried, mourning something, she just didn't know what._

_Long moments passed of wiping her face on her sleeve, feeling a second of respite, of composure finally settling on her before remembering Dean’s words, remembering what they meant and what he was saying and everything that had happened between them. Everything that had happened since she had moved to New York, since before that. Since leaving Cleveland, since Sunnydale collapsed in on itself. Since… everything and anything went kablooey._

_Tears leaking from her eyes, Buffy leaned her against the metal, liking the way it dug into her skull as she stared at the ground._

_She didn’t feel the little pelts of rain until the stairs suddenly rattled from below her and Buffy looked up as a woman climbed the steps, moving slowly, a cautious eye on her. The crazy lady sitting in the rain. Buffy wiped her face, drying her hands off on her sleeves before wiping her nose._

_She noticed the sky was lightening, barely, as the rain started growing a little heavier and she squinted against the slowly rising sun, ignoring the little drops slapping her face, wondering when that had happened._

_Buffy turned back to the woman and smiled, forcing as much apology as one could into a smile as the woman stopped midway. Buffy stood, wiping her hands on her jeans, ready to move out of the way when the woman spoke._

_“Some guy broke your heart, huh?” she asked. Her voice was thick with Brooklyn persuasion and Buffy paused at the specificness of the question._

_“Um.” Buffy unconsciously turned back to Dean’s door, wondering how late it had been when she had come here. “Something like that, yeah. Or actually the other way around maybe, I don’t know. Sorry, I’ll get out of your way.”_

_“Thanks, doll,” she said, slipping past her. “And don’t worry about whatever’s got you all you all messed up. My mom used to tell me when the sun rose as the rain fell from a clear sky, clarity was just around the corner. Trust the old broad, she knew what she was talking about.” The woman paused again after her offhand remark, staring at her. Buffy looked away, wiping her eyes again. She could only imagine what she looked like. “You want anything? I’ve got very sympathetic ears, even for a chick you just met at five in the morning.”_

_Buffy cracked a smile, laughing - both at the absurdity of the random woman finding her at a not-so-reputable motel close to the middle of the night offering her a friendly ear and that she was sitting here, crying in the first place. Buffy licked her lips as she shook her head. “No, I’m okay. Thank you though… that’s nice of you.”_

_“We gotta keep each other’s backs, you know,” the woman said as she slid past Buffy and walked in the opposite direction of Dean’s door. “Have a good rest of the night, hon.”_

_“Thanks. You too.”_

_Buffy watched her walking away. She watched her get her key out and slip it in the door, giving her a little wave which Buffy returned. As the woman disappeared, Buffy took a deep breathe, scrubbing her face with the new rain. It felt good and cool against her irritated skin._

_What was she doing? She had to get a grip._

_Mourning. That’s all she was doing, she was mourning. Because she had just lost a good friend. That’s all. Someone who had entered her life and left a mark and now they were leaving again and she just had to freaking deal with that fact. That’s all._

_Buffy looked up at the sky, suddenly feeling too tired to do anything but. Her face felt puffy and full of seaweed as her cheeks drank in the early morning rain shower. Her eyes were scratchy and angry at her and she wished the rain could refresh her all over - inside and out. Her chest felt like someone was walking through it with a weed whacker, stringing out chunks of her sanity. Buffy took another deep breathe, letting the rain fall on her face, wet her hair and her clothes. It felt good._

_Cleansing…_

_A flash of an image she hadn’t thought about in years roared through her mind and her eyes snapped open. The pain from that moment felt fresh all of a sudden, just as fresh as if she had just got done watching him leave her, doing just as he promised he would if she didn't step up to the plate. That had happened so long ago, ages ago… but suddenlty it hurt just as much as it had then. After she had just let him leave and she had done nothing about it; sat back and lost him when she had had the chance…_

_Buffy couldn’t really remember moving so much as she blinked her eyes and suddenly she was back in front of his door, knocking. She heard something thump before she heard him cursing wildly on the other side before he opened the door with too much force, the annoyance relevant in the way he glared at her._

_He looked like absolute hell, like he didn’t know what a good night of sleep was, like he didn’t know how to sleep at all. His t-shirt was twisted around his torso and he had never looked more beautiful than in that moment._

_“What the hell are you still doing here?” he rasped, running his hand through his hair._

_“I want you to be home,” she said simply, her voice cracking, swallowing as she felt the familiar burn of more tears. It stung her throat, making her eyes cringe at the thought and Dean just stood there. He closed his eyes, looking tired. He opened his mouth and Buffy didn’t wait to hear what he had to say, she didn’t care._

_She chose._

_And this time, the decision felt right._

_Buffy stepped forward, grabbing his face and pulling him down to her height as she kissed him._

_Dean didn’t respond right away. His body stayed stiff, like he was waiting for the inevitable shift in time that was marked ‘normal’ wherein they weren't plastered together like this. But it never came. Buffy wasn’t sure if it was because he just woke up and thought he was dreaming or if he was just completely out of it - and she didn’t care -because he just as quickly slid his arms around her, pulling her closer, kissing her back with equal ardor; a new intensity, something she had never felt before and it washed over her, filling her…_

_This was right. This was what she wanted._

_Buffy pulled back for a second, her breathing sporadic as she looked up at him, wanting to see him, wanting to see what he was thinking, wanting to see if he would say no. Again. Push her away._

_Instead of the cold hard stone he had shown her before, his eyes were a dark liquid green. His lips were red and puffy from her kiss and the look in his eyes… Buffy chanced a smile and he didn’t return it. Instead he stared at her, his face flickering between indecision and hard reality, and she felt his hands tightening in her clothes on her back before he pressed his forehead to hers, hard, squeezing his eyes shut._

_Buffy made a tiny sound in the back of her throat as something blossomed in her chest in sync with the sensation of his heart beating against her own._

_Dean stepped backwards into the room, taking her with him and she followed._

*

I chose.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three - May 2017

**Chapter Twenty-Three - May 2017**

_wanted to feel like I could tell you why_   
_thought I could almost see the other side_   
_it disappeared before I saw the sign_   
_the end is near_

_Buffy stared at the bed, reaching out and touching the edge of the comforter before pulling her hand back. She had been sitting like this for more than just a few minutes and her knees were starting to wonder what was wrong with her as she hunched next to the bed, staring at the comforter._

_The apartment was quiet for once, everyone still at work and she knew the time was fast approaching that she needed to get off her haunches and get out of there. The brilliant sun that had lit up the city after the rain clouds dissipated made the room glow._

_She had packed everything she would need. She didn’t need much. Most of everything she owned anymore felt pretty relevant to just this one place and taking it somewhere else just felt… wrong._

_The back of Buffy’s throat burned with the hot pressure of tears coming on as the heavy sun slanted rays across the bed she had shared for the last four years._

_Before she could think twice, Buffy grabbed the corner of the comforter from his side and pressed it to her face, inhaling quickly before dropping it like it was on fire. It drifted to the ground slowly, dusting the hardwood floor as Ted’s clean cologne filled her nose._

_Buffy didn’t try to stop the tears as they burst forth, the familiar scent, the scent that had once upon a time made her feel safe as houses, filled her senses and she rubbed her hand across her eyes, burying her head in her arms._

_She didn’t want to leave but she did. She didn’t have the words to explain that when she was here, with Ted, it felt right but when she was out there… with Dean… it felt right too._

_It had never been a question of what felt right and what felt wrong but more… what did she want to be the right thing. Which made this even harder because she thought she had had that but it hadn't fit the bill just right._

_Buffy rubbed her face, scrubbing the tears off her already raw cheeks as she stood, casting her eyes away from the bed. She made her way to the door, wanting to look back but not trusting herself to do it. The room full of her things mixed in with Ted's things. Their things._

_She should be a grownup and just get rid of her stuff, send it off, pack quickly and silently and disappear from his life completely. She should definitely not just leave everything here, like the coward she felt like, as she switched the light off, picking up the light duffel sitting next to the bedroom door._

_But that wouldn’t do. She didn’t want this stuff in this new life she was taking on, she wouldn’t need any of this. It was ironic that most of what she was taking with her was everything she had brought along in her first trip to New York. A few pair of pants, a few shirts. She was taking her favorite leather jacket she had found in a thrift shop and a few other odds and ends, but other than that…_

_One thing she regretted leaving was her trunk. She had had that since she was six. Yet Buffy still didn’t turn to look at it, having already cleared it of everything strange and paranormal. Instead she left the room as it was, as she had set it up when she first moved in here with Ted, as she had envisioned it being for the rest of her life when she had thought things were going to stay the way they had started…_

_The word naïve popped into her head and Buffy felt foolish for thinking it._

_Buffy was staring at the cheap plastic globe sitting on the windowsill when she heard the key in the lock to the front door turn and her heart seized, stopping on point as the doorknob turned and Ted entered, patting his pockets as he looked around, heading into the kitchen without even glancing over her way._

_Buffy stopped breathing, the tears immediately flooding her eyes and making the world a blurry mess. She heard his sound of triumph as he found whatever he had forgotten and then he was out of the kitchen and staring at his phone. He looked ready to just leave without even noticing she was there and she felt a tearing feeling rip through her chest - both happiness that she was going to escape without seeing him as well as a deep tremor of pain that this was her last weak moment - when he saw her out the corner of his eye._

_He stopped short, staring at her. There was no surprise though and Buffy felt her lips pulling back in a silent sob as his eyes followed her arm down to the bag she carried._

_He didn’t say a word._

_Buffy opened her mouth, wanting to say something, anything, but there was nothing she could say. He knew. He knew exactly what was going on. His eyes drifted back up to hers and Buffy would never forget the shattered look in his eyes as he realized… as he realized what he had been feeling had been right all along._

_Buffy had never hated herself more than she did in that moment._

_“Ted,” she whispered, her voice cracking with emotion and he pinched his lips, looking away, not making a single sound before leaving the apartment, slamming the door behind him._

_For what felt like the hundredth time that day, Buffy cried. She dropped her bag, burying her face in her hands…_

_She was still mourning… only this time, she was mourning the right person._

_And it made it hurt worse._

*

You don’t need to look at me that way, you know, I already know I’m a horrible person.

I warned you: there isn’t a Buffy story without massive amounts of miserable Atlas-sized angst to go along with it. I was sorry that it had taken me so long to see what it was that I was missing in my life, that it had to hurt him along the way.

I’m still sorry. I think I’ll always be sorry. Not that that makes it any better.

*

_The sun was beating down on her back as she waited at the corner of the street, staring at the brick wall on the other side of the alley where the building was casting its shadow. He was on his way, coming to get her…_

_She felt like something huge and evil was looming behind her and she knew that it was probably the apartment. And MacLaren’s. Everything they represented and everything they had been to her over the last several years. And also probably one of the gods who was probably sharpening a lightning bolt just for her. She deserved at least fifteen thousand more of those special bolts with her name on them. They would copyright a certain type of bolt for her - one shaped like knife stabbing something or… something._

_Buffy rubbed her face, scratching at her eyes until she saw little star bursts._

_She knew, deep in her heart, that she was making the right decision here. She just knew. She knew she didn’t belong here, no matter how much she wanted to. She knew that everything she had been building towards had been a beautiful lie, something constructed around her, something meant to let her escape from the darkness she thought she could run from._

_But the darkness was always there. Always waiting._

_But the more she ran, the more she tried to hide from it, the more she realized when it came roaring back into her life that it was just part of her. It was her._

_And it would always remind her of the people she had hurt along the way of her own little self-denial river of doom._

_The familiar sound of the Impala echoed against the alley walls and Buffy looked up just as Dean lurched to a stop at the other end of the alley. He put the car into gear when he saw her on the other end of the alley and he offered a sad half smile._

_Buffy would be lying to herself if she didn’t half expect him to not show._

_But he was here._

_Buffy shoved off the wall and started into the shadowy darkness of the alley when she heard feet slapping the ground behind her and she stopped - stopped moving, stopping breathing - before turning as Ted crossed the street. His tie was askew and his hair looked a little too wild and he stopped right at the edge of where the building’s shadow started and the sun began, the bright sunlight lighting him up in front of her._

_Buffy instinctively moved to step towards him but his hand flew up and she stopped, staying in the shadows._

_“No, stop," he said sharply. "I’m not here to win you back or anything. I’m here...” Ted stopped, his voice low and it sent chills down Buffy’s spine as he ran a hand through his hair, closing his eyes before opening them, glancing over her shoulder at what she imagined was Dean sitting in his car before his eyes drilled into hers. “I am here because I need you to know that you made the biggest mistake of your life.”_

_The tears burned her eyes like they were acid as he blurred before her and he just shook his head as he continued, “You picked the wrong guy. You made a really, really, really bad choice. What were you thinking? This guy?” he asked, gesturing to Dean behind her and Buffy didn’t turn to look. Instead, she stared at the ground before her eyes rolled back up to where he was just staring at her, willing her to say something. But she had nothing. He shook his head sadly. “It's like there's this huge part of you I didn't even know, I never knew. And I waited, I thought you'd tell me, I tried to give you space, because I knew it was something big, but… you never did. And you’re just gonna regret this. You know that, right? You are going to regret this and now there is nothing you can do about it because you it’s too late.”_

_Ted’s voice cracked on the last word and Buffy felt her chest cracking in two at his words. He had known, this entire time, he had known that something was missing. She wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing her eyes shut as tears cascaded down her cheeks._

_“All you can do now is go over there and start your crappy, disappointing life that will never be nearly as happy as the one you could have had with me,” Ted said. He paused, almost like he was waiting for her to say something - anything - but she didn’t budge. Didn’t move. Maybe because… he was right. She didn’t know._

_Ted threw his hands up in the air, nodding his head knowingly. “Right. Okay, well… goodbye, Buffy.”_

_Buffy’s breath hitched as more sobs flooded her chest and she took a step out of the shadows, squeezing her arms before dropping her hands as she called out, “Ted.”_

_Ted stopped right in front of the apartment stairs, not turning around for a moment. Neither moved before he glanced over his shoulder and Buffy couldn’t stop the cries bubbling forth as she nodded, offering him her own sad smile and said, “I know. I know you're right.”_

_He just stared at her where he stood, his face sad and drawn before glancing once more at where Dean sat behind her. Buffy barely saw him shake his head at her before he bound up the steps, taking them two at a time before bursting into the doors and disappearing from sight._

_Buffy closed her eyes, feeling the hot course of the tears torturing the skin of her cheeks. She turned around, only opening her eyes when her back was to the apartment and she crossed the alley._

_Towards Dean._

_He was leaning back in his seat, staring straight ahead, his jaw moving like he was doing a really good job of grinding his teeth into powder as she opened her door, sliding in, dumping her bag at her feet. She took a deep breath before wiping her face._

_When she turned to face Dean, he was staring at her, his face sad and resigned. She offered him a watery smile, turning to face him more fully but he just glanced over her shoulder instead. Buffy didn’t turn to look._

_“Buffy-”_

_Buffy reached out, grabbing his arm and silencing him. She swallowed, opening her eyes more fully, knowing she looked like she belonged in the psycho-version of that creepy love ride at amusement parks - the bad side of relationships - but she didn’t care as she squeezed his arm before gesturing to the road._

_"I'm ready."_

_Dean closed his eyes, taking a deep sighing breath. He leaned over, grabbing the back of her neck and pressed a dry kiss to her forehead. Buffy let out a tremulous sigh, leaning into the kiss until he pulled back and shifted the car into gear._


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four - May 2018

**Chapter Twenty-Four - May 2018**

 

_one world, it’s a battleground_   
_one world, and we will smash it down_   
_one world… one world…_

And there you have it, folks. Or rather, folk, since there’s only one of you.

One year ago today, I traded in my life for something different. Something very different.

Very, very different. I’m sorry, did you catch that part, because it’s important.

This last year? Not so easy.

I don’t regret what happened or the choice I made. I still think I made the right one but let me tell you something: living with Dean Winchester is like living with a live-action KISS doll. He’s so gross, he leaves his food and his laundry everywhere and the only thing he actually cleans is his car. And sometimes his gun collection. And sometimes his favorite pair of jeans.

Besides that, we still didn’t really know each other that well.

Neither of us really thought about what it meant when we left New York together. Seeing each other every few months and going through a few life or death situations which happened to mold a pretty interesting bond was nothing like actually being with the person 24/7.

I wanted to kill him about ninety-seven percent of the time and I would wager his was around eighty percent. Maybe a little higher although I think I’m much easier to live with.

But it got easier. And we adapted.

That was one trait we both shared - adaptability. Even when our lives were at stake from the other. Whatever it was that we had bonded over gave us that little tidbit of strength - something to push us past the moments when it was truly unbearable.

Those little tidbits came at surprising times.

It was the little moments that made it all worth it. He got me, in ways that other people didn’t. He was one hundred percent human and he was the most flawed human being I had ever met. And he was loyal. And true and honest - even brutally so sometimes - and he was… Dean.

Whether it was when we were stuck in the motel, watching a boring bunch of daytime television, and he absently rubbed my leg; being soft and intimate and then getting annoyed when I noticed. Or when he thought he was doing a nice thing and washed my clothes all in the same load and color transfer happened and he ruined my yellow shirt. Or when he made me a new favorite stake when I shattered my other one.

Or when I tickled him in that tiny spot right below his shoulder blade that I don’t think anyone had ever known about. Or when I learned to actually sew things and I managed to salvage his favorite leather jacket; and now I see him glancing at the side of the jacket with that little smile and you get that weird fuzzy feeling. Or when I replaced his worn tapes with brand new ones, even though I had to go onto eBay to find actual cassette tapes. Listening to the same stupid Metallica songs over and over again made me want to bash my head in but the smile on his face was worth it…

It was when he finally talked about Sam choosing to go back to his normal life a few months after the gates closed or when I told him about Spike and the unstable darkness we reached together. Or when he explained his early years, growing up with his father as a hunter, or when I talked about sending the man I loved to Hell.

Of course those little moments often led to arguments - "What, he was a vampire? You slept with a vampire?" - but he eventually got over it. Mostly because I made him talk about it by badgering him to death. I'm really quite persuasive.

That doesn't mean I don't hear about it when I do something that pisses him off. Like I just did it yesterday and it all leads into another argument. It's the same when I complain about his driving or when he tries to get in front of me on hunts. But… I like it, in a weird way. It's brutally honest, what I have with him, and I've never had that.

It was the little moments.

They made everything worth it. Even though he wouldn't admit it, it's there. He hates it when I point it out, thinks I'm getting too "chicky" on him. Especially when I notice him doing the same thing…

So, to answer your question, no, I don’t regret anything. Every decision I made has led me to this place. It’s definitely not at all the place I thought I would end up but…

I’m happy. Not just content, but happy.

*

Buffy stared up at the cloudless sky, swinging her legs absently where she sat on a gravestone, letting her heels click against the stone when they swung back.

She heard the familiar rustle of the dirt trying to move and she rolled her eyes, turning to look back at the vampire who had been her listening buddy for the last hour as she waited for Dean.

“Is the earth literally eating you up?” she asked in amusement and the vampire growled at her in response.

“If I had known that the way you were going to kill me was with some stupid sappy love story, I would never have risen,” he replied, snapping his teeth at her and Buffy glanced at the headstone.

“Jeez, Harold,” Buffy said, swinging off the stone and landing on her feet easily. She flipped the stake she kept in her sleeve out, letting it slide into her hand perfectly. “Usually you dead guys are a lot happier. Hey, just think of the upside, if I hadn’t been here, you’d have a whole eternity in front of you.”

“I will still have an eternity before me,” Harold snarled back, his claws bloodied from trying to dig out of his grave. “If you’ll just kindly…" He pulled on whatever he was stuck on again. "Help me out. So I can repay the favor.”

Buffy snorted. “Where’s your sire, you need some vampire etiquette classes. At least I told you a good bedtime story.”

“Please,” Harold sneered, pausing in his struggles as he turned to look up Buffy where she stood over him. “I could have told you from the beginning you’d end up with Dean. Any idiot can see that.”

“Did you just call me an idiot?” Buffy asked, cocking her head. “That’s really not very nice. Only I can call me an idiot. That's how it works.”

“Is this how Slayers kill vampires? By lipping them to death?”

“You are one sassy vampire, Harold,” Buffy continued, reaching down and grabbing the back of his jacket and giving him a good yank. Whatever had been holding him snapped deep in the earth and Buffy lifted him until he was standing on his own two feet. His pants had ripped up his leg and he had a deep gash on his ankle. Buffy made a face, slapping her hand against her thigh, ridding it of dirt, as Harold patted his suit, not in the least concerned about his wound. “You’re welcome.”

“No, thank you,” Harold said, his mouth pulling back in a grin that showed his toothy smile just as Buffy shoved her stake into his back. The look of abject unfairness on his face was enough to make Buffy feel just a little bad before he burst into dust.

“That was cathartic. In more ways than one,” Buffy said to the pile that used to be Harold before slipping her stake into her jacket sleeve.

“Talking to yourself again?” Buffy turned as Dean rounded the corner, looking around cautiously before setting his eyes on her. “When you said ‘meet me at the cemetery,’ maybe you should have been a little more specific.”

“What? Why? This is a cemetery.”

“Oh wow, thanks, Einstein,” Dean replied. “It’s also one of six cemeteries in this creepy little town. You just happened to be at the very last one.” Buffy couldn’t hold back her chuckle, covering her mouth as Dean glowered at her. “It’s not funny. I already got two calls from Sam, bitching up a storm, and where the hell is your phone?”

“I left it in the car,” Buffy replied, shrugging. “I broke the last one on a hunt, remember?”

Dean rolled his eyes, walking over and grabbing her hand, yanking her in for a quick kiss before heading back towards the entrance of Horn’s Nest Cemetery, lacing his fingers through hers as they walked together.

“And it’s not my fault your brother chose this town. It’s actually cute, in a really, kind of… deep-rooted way.”

“You mean in an old and weird way.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Sam keeps going on about the history of this place, but I think that chick he knocked up dragged his ass here.”

“Would you be nice, they’re getting married.”

“Which is plain stupid,” Dean groused but Buffy caught the glint in his eyes. The glint he would never talk about or explain or want anyone to actually see that he was happy - nay, full of glee that Sam was getting married and about to have a kid of his own… in a normal life, nowhere near the darkness the world was so full of.

“You’re a plain idiot,” Buffy replied with a smile.

“You like it,” Dean snorted, and stopped abruptly when Buffy yanked on his hand, pulling him back towards her. She cupped his cheek, running her thumb over the customary little smirk her was wearing and she smiled in return.

She liked it when he smiled. Those lines needed some happy wrinkle growth as far as she was concerned. Slowly but surely the lines of worry and pain and grief were starting to fade… just a little.

“Only sometimes,” she said before kissing him.

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes:
> 
> Thank you SO much for the amazing response to this story - I wasn't sure how such a crossover would go over, and the response has been really fabulous, so thank you! I hope this ending brought Buffy's journey to a close for you.
> 
> Check out the original handwritten challenge pages from Dana [here](http://primordialsouls.com/fiction/thenormallife/thenormallife1.jpg) and [here](http://primordialsouls.com/fiction/thenormallife/thenormallife2.jpg).
> 
> This story was originally designed to be a series of snippets - I just wanted to show Buffy in her normal life, meeting Dean and falling back into her true nature (as far as what a Slayer is to her and how that plays into how she lives her life) and how she gets back to that point.
> 
> That being said, a lot of stuff was not explored in this story for that very reason! I've gotten a lot of great feedback inquiring into other aspects (i.e. other Slayers, the Scoobies, Sam, Dean's POV, etc.). Personally, I don't think a sequel is a great option for this story since the intent was to include HIMYM elements, so here is my question:
> 
> Would you guys be interested in some one-shots?
> 
> I would just add them in as chapters to this story, and depending on which scenes are written/requested, I'll differentiate them based on timeline/chapters so you know when it takes place. Or they can also take place after this story has ended. I've got a few ideas already from you fabulous people, but since so much of the story hasn't been told (since it was all in Buffy's POV), if you guys want to see something that you thought was missing (i.e. other character's POV or why the hell I didn't include more Garth or where the hell are the other Slayers, hello?), please let me know!
> 
> Thank you again! :)


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